'Confident' Clarke thought of winning Port of Spain Test match before rain intervened

Port of Spain, (West Indies), Apr 20 (ANI): Australia captain Michael Clarke has said he was confident of winning the rain-affected second Test match at Queen's Park Oval on the last day after declaring their second innings at 8-160, setting the West Indies an enticing target of 215 runs from 61 overs.

Clarke said he was sure spin duo of Nathan Lyon and Michael Beer would have done the job for them, which would have won them the series 2-0 and also helped them to retain the Frank Worrell Trophy.

Australia and West Indies both fancied their chances of victory when rain curtailed hopes of a result on the final day of the second Test.

Clarke appealed to the umpires to let the game continue, assuring them that he would use spin from both ends in the fading light, which he had planned to do anyway. But while that conversation was taking place, it all became futile as rain again intervened.

"I think he (Lyon) was going to play a huge part for us to win the game. I thought both him and Michael Beer were going to have to win us the Test pretty much. They were going to have to bowl in tandem," News.com.au quoted Clarke, as saying.

"So, he wasn't far away. He was going to bowl that over and I imagine for us to have won the game, he would have bowled the whole way through," he added.

"The facts are that we still could have lost today, that's for sure, the way Darren (Sammy) was batting. The West Indies have a pretty strong batting line-up with Chanderpaul in good form. But I was confident with the way the boys bowled n the first innings. I was confident the two spinners could have spun us to victory today," he said. (ANI)