Roseau: Yashasvi Jaiswal's temperament was "tested" but he batted "sensibly" to produce a sensational century and the sole message to him by skipper Rohit Sharma was to enjoy his game as he has gone through all the grinding required to reach the Test level.
The southpaw's 171 runs on debut had all the flair and strokes that are a hallmark of batters belonging to international cricket. In doing so, he became only the third Indian cricketer to score 150 runs on debut that came on the back of some high scores he collected in the IPL and domestic cricket.
Rohit, who shared a 229-run partnership with the youngster was effusive in his praise. He said, "He has the talent, he has shown us in the past that he is ready. Came and batted sensibly. The temperament was also tested, at no stage he was panicking. The chats we had were to remind him that 'you belong here. You have done the hard yards, enjoy your time here'."
India who had endured difficulties in the World Test Championship recently had critics blame the batters for the continued dismal outings. A point in the case made was their poor performances in the past two years where even the world's best like Virat Kohli registered an average of less than 40.
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Meanwhile, in this match, India posted a total of 421 runs for five wickets in their only batting effort and bowled out West Indies for 150 and 130 runs to embark on a three-day finish.
"I would like to start by saying it was a great effort with the ball. Getting them out for 150 set the game for us. We knew batting would get tough, it wasn't easy to score runs. We knew we wanted to bat only once and bat long. Get over 400 runs and then we came out and bowled really well," he said. R Ashwin ended with 12 wickets in the game and Ravindra Jadeja took five, drawing praise from the skipper.
"The results speak for themselves, they have been doing it for a while. There isn't much to tell them, it is about giving them the freedom to express. The experience these guys have on pitches like this is always a luxury. Both Ash and Jadeja were superb, especially Ashwin for coming out and bowling this way was class."
On starting with a win in the new WTC cycle, he said: "Always nice to start well, it is a fresh cycle. We weren't too worried about the pitch, we wanted to come here and get results. "Important to start well, now about taking that momentum into the second Test. There are a couple of new guys and people who haven't had much Test cricket, so just about getting them out on the field now."
