The Sagicor HPC captain said he players felt gutted, after spinners Yannic Cariah and Veerasammy Permaul shared eight wickets, but they had to settle for a tense draw with the Bangladesh Cricket Board Academy in their tour match on Wednesday.
Leg-spinner Cariah was the most impressive Sagicor HPC bowler, grabbing 5-79 from 31 overs, and left-arm spinner Permaul snared 3-55 from 28 overs, as the BCB Academy, forced to follow on, finished on 217 for nine in their second innings – led by 118 from Soumya Sarkar – on the final day of the four-day match at the Sheikh Abu Naser Stadium.
“As a team, it feels like a loss because we worked very hard for four days in some very humid conditions and to not get a victory and end up with a draw feels somewhat like a loss,” said Brathwaite.
“I think if we had gotten the full amount of the game – minus the rain – we would have gotten a winning result.”
The 24-year-old all-rounder said there were a number of things that went extremely well for his side in the match.
He praised the batting, particularly of Kyle Hope, Andre Fletcher and Keddy Lesporis, and said they fulfilled one of the team’s goals.
“We set out as batsmen to get hundreds and big hundreds and this is exactly what Kyle did, but I do not want to belittle the efforts of Andre and Keddy because they were also excellent,” he said.
“Most of the other batsmen got starts and we had three or four failures, but you cannot expect everyone to score runs in an innings.”
Brathwaite said he and the rest of the Sagicor HPC bowlers toiled hard in unforgiving conditions, but they were satisfied with the job they had done.
“The bowling effort on a whole was brilliant,” he said. “The pacers didn’t get much response from the pitch, but we had a role to play.
“Whil e the spinners got the wickets and the results from one end, we had to keep things tight and dry up the runs from the other end, and there was a period in time when we bowled 18 overs for 20 runs.
“It was a brilliant effort – immaculate lines and lengths – and being disciplined enough, although many of us were still jetlagged, to go out there and perform under pressure.”
The Sagicor HPC team are on a month-long trip to Bangladesh and will face the Bangladesh A-Team in another four-day match, starting on Sunday at the Sher-e-Bangla Stadium in the country’s capital of Dhaka.
Brathwaite said he expected his side to keep up their rate of work and seek to win next time.
“Basically, I expect more of the same thing in the next match,” he said. “I don’t think there are many areas in which anybody could fault the team.
“Everyone is excited by the fact that we thought we would have started a bit slower, but we took up that challenge. . .and it is to carry on that form against a stronger side and do what we did for a longer period of time.
“Better opposition means that consistency has to improve and this is a challenge that all of the guys will be looking to face head on.”