New Delhi [India], October 9 : West Indies tearaway Jayden Seales, who relishes the opportunity of being a leader and comes from a cricketing family, wants to restore the pride and glory of the Caribbean side by putting them at the top of the chart.
The West Indies were once considered a cricketing juggernaut, with legends such as Vivian Richards, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, and Colin Croft, among many others, dominating the world of cricket. However, towards the end of the last decade, the Men in Maroon have lost their pride, chasing lost golden days, and the current skipper, Roston Chase, has become the inheritor of the lost glory.
Their woes reflect in the current results, which saw the 2016 T20 World Cup champions outplayed by Nepal in a 2-1 T20I series defeat. The West Indies endured a home series whitewash against Australia earlier this year and last week lost the opening Test in India by an innings and 140 runs.
With the onus on the current players to carry the West Indies out of the peculiar situation, Seales said that the entire team views the challenge and derives motivation from it. On a personal note, Seales strives to become the number one player and carry his team to the pinnacle of world cricket.
"Well, yeah, we are the current players. So it's up to us to try to get the West Indies back to where we were. And there is pressure, obviously. There's always pressure when they put on the West Indies clothes. However, it's good pressure because this is what we want to do, and this is why we come out on the field to play and perform well for the country and the region. So we take that as motivation," Seales said while speaking exclusively to ANI.
"I come from a cricketing family, and I'm blessed to represent the West Indies from a young age. So it's just to keep building on it and keep performing whenever given the chance. Hopefully, at one point in my career, I can be number one and stay there for as long as I possibly can, and help West Indies get back to number one at some point," he added.
In the absence of Shamar and Alzarri Josep, the 24-year-old quick gun has enjoyed the added leadership responsibility of spearheading the visitors' pace attack. According to him, serving as a leader helps him attain consistency, stay focused in the game, and assist his bowling compatriots in finding their rhythm.
"Yeah, I think every time a leadership role is placed on me, whether it be in the test team or the white ball team, I tend to bowl a lot better. I tend to bring out my best attributes as a leader. So it helped me a lot to be consistent and to be more focused in the game, and help the other bowlers to get into their work and hit their straps," Seales said.
On Wednesday, West Indies icons Vivian Richards, Brian Lara, and Richie Richardson met with the current crop of players ahead of the second Test against India in the national capital. Seales spilt the beans about the words of motivation that they received from the current lot of players before locking horns with the hosts on Friday at the Arun Jaitley Stadium.
"They just said to keep the fight. We have a long history of West Indies cricket being on top for such a long time. So they basically just want us to keep fighting and keep believing in ourselves. I mean, if we don't believe, no one would. So it's for us as a group to believe in ourselves and keep performing hard, and just keep trying our best to bring out good performances for the West Indies," he concluded.
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