(CMC):INDIA COACH Greg Chappell says West Indies have forgotten how to win, but he refuses to write them off for the remainder of the Digicel Series.
Speaking after India won the first One-Day International in thrilling fashion with one ball remaining at Sabina Park on Thursday, Chappell said West Indies boasted quality players to be competitive.
While West Indies are ranked at No. 8 in both forms of the game in the International Cricket Council's table, India are at No. 3 in both Tests and One-Day Internationals but Chappell does not read much into those rankings.
"In a two-horse race, it's a 50-50 bet. All the rankings tell you is what you've done in recent times. It doesn't tell you about the class and the quality of the team, and the West Indian side has got some class," he said.
"There are some very talented players in that team. They have just forgotten how to win at the moment and that takes a bit of practice and they have not had as much practice as we have had.
"If they had a little bit more success in recent times, they may have made it harder for us, but we will take some credit for the win."
"We don't underrate them at all. There are a lot of class players in that side, and through history, they have been hard to beat in the West Indies so we don't underrate them at all," Chappell said.
"We see them as a side that could very quickly turn it around. They've got a lot of good athletes, they bowl well, they have got some real talent in their batting line up."
It was India's 17th consecutive successful run-chase after reaching a target of 252 for the loss of five wickets from the penultimate ball of the 45-overs-a-side match.
While West Indies coasted to an easy 5-0 series success over Zimbabwe, they had won only three of their previous 23 ODIs.
TEAMS
WEST INDIES - Brian Lara (captain), Chris Gayle, Runako Morton, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Marlon Samuels, Dwayne Bravo, Dwayne Smith, Carlton Baugh, Ian Bradshaw, Corey Collymore, Fidel Edwards, Jerome Taylor, Dave Mohammed.
INDIA - Rahul Dravid (captain), Virender Sehwag, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh, Mohammad Kaif, , Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Irfan Pathan, Ajit Agarkar, Rudra Pratap Singh, Munaf Patel, Harbhajan Singh, Robin Uthappa, Venugopal Rao Shantha Sreesanth, Ramesh Powar.
