Guyana, July 16 (ANI): Lion-hearted all-rounder Darren Sammy will mark a special career milestone in Tuesday's second One-Day International against Pakistan, when he suits up for his 100th ODI for West Indies.
The 29-year-old, who made his debut nine years ago, described the match as one of the "highlights" of his career but said he had no intentions of changing his approaching to the contest at the Guyana National Stadium. First ball is 9 am (8 am Jamaica Time).
"When I first started I never really had any thoughts of playing a hundred matches or anything like that. All I really wanted to do was represent the West Indies and give my all on every occasion out there on the field," the Windies Number 88 said.
"God has blessed me with the talent and I give him all credit. It is good to play games for the West Indies. Yes it is a milestone for me, but I will approach it as any other game before, preparing myself both physically and mentally well and make sure I am match ready if selected, for tomorrow's match. I see this as one of the highlight moments of my career."
Sammy recalled some of the other highlights of his career, including the West Indies sensational victory in the ICC Champions Trophy final at the Oval in England in 2004, which was actually his first tour with the regional team.
The hard-hitting right-hander has a career-best knock of 84, a blazing innings off just 50 balls against Australia in his native St Lucia last year, while his best bowling was 4-26 with the new ball against Zimbabwe at Arnos Vale, St Vincent three years ago.
West Indies will be hoping to bounce back after losing Sunday's opening match by 126 runs, following a poor batting performance.
Fast bowler Jason Holder took a career-best four-wicket haul to have Pakistan on the ropes at 47-5 but they recovered to make 224. West Indies then suffered a slump to lose by 126 runs.
Despite the result, Sammy remained optimistic and promised a much improved display when the two teams take the field on Tuesday.
"We have been through times like this before, but someway and somehow we found a way to bounce back. If we are honest with ourselves as cricketers, we know where we all went wrong. It is about putting consistently, good performances on the cricket pitch," he pointed out.
"We had a good start from the spell Jason gave us, but we did not capitalize on that and that is something we really got to improve on, which is driving home the advantage when we have teams in critical positions with our bowling." (ANI)
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