West Indies captain Darren Sammy feels his batsmen need to play spinners better going into the first of the five ODIs against India beginning at Queen's Park Oval here today.

Playing in front of a capacity crowd, West Indies fell 16 short of their target of 160 after India made 159-6 off their 20 overs.


Darren Sammy

Sammy was superb with the ball taking 4-16. "We stuck at it to start with but I would say we let them get 20 runs too many and in the end that made the difference in the match," Sammy said.

Sammy touched on the areas where he felt the team need to improve. "The batsmen have been doing a lot of work with Desmond Haynes (batting consultant) and we are seeing improvements.

"We will keep working and looking for scoring opportunities against the spinners.

"The batsmen should play the spinners better come Monday," Sammy said.

"We did some good things but as we reflect on the match we would all agree that we let a few situations get away.

"We have to work harder at winning those crucial situations, which can turn a match, especially in the shortest version of the game," he added.

In the batting, left-hander Darren Bravo made run-a-ball 41. At the bottom of the innings new boys Chris Barnwell (34 not out) and Danza Hyatt (14 not out), both in their second game at this level, played some massive shots and added 50 off just 22 balls.

"It was great to see how Barnwell played and tried his best. It was nice to see the guys showing the confidence and self-belief required."