ABU DHABI–West In­dies bat­ting coach To­by Rad­ford has dis­missed sug­ges­tions the wretched re­sults in the pre­ced­ing lim­it­ed overs se­ries, may be hav­ing a neg­a­tive im­pact on the Test unit.

Rather, the Eng­lish­man said the Ja­son Hold­er-led squad was burst­ing with self-be­lief and their con­fi­dence has been fur­ther bol­stered by the first Test per­for­mance in Dubai where they pushed Pak­istan in­to the fi­nal hour of the last day, be­fore con­ced­ing de­feat by 56 runs.

"There have been three dif­fer­ent squads in three dif­fer­ent com­pe­ti­tions and as we know, the T20 and the 50-overs didn't go par­tic­u­lar­ly well," Rad­ford said.

"This has been al­most a to­tal­ly new bunch of play­ers who've been very pos­i­tive since they came. We had a good build-up to this tour–two weeks prepa­ra­tion in Dubai to get used to the weath­er, lots of good prac­tice and a very pos­i­tive up­beat team."

West In­dies have so far failed to win a sin­gle game on tour, suf­fer­ing em­bar­rass­ing 3-0 white­wash­es in the T20 and the ODI se­ries.And the poor run seemed set to con­tin­ue in the day/night open­ing Test when Pak­istan piled up a mas­sive 579 for three de­clared in their first in­nings.

How­ev­er, West In­dies turned in two de­cent bat­ting per­for­mances and a clin­i­cal bowl­ing per­for­mance to stun Pak­istan, trans­form­ing the game in­to a re­al con­test be­fore wilt­ing in the end.

"They were dis­ap­point­ed that we lost last week but at the end, I think they be­lieved how well they played and to take it to the fifth day, we could have won that game," Rad­ford said.

"So there is a lot of pos­i­tiv­i­ty here and a lot of en­er­gy here and they want to put in an­oth­er good per­for­mance over these next four or five days [in the sec­ond Test]."

West In­dies were car­ried by Dar­ren Bra­vo who made 87 and 116–his eighth Test hun­dred–and vet­er­an Mar­lon Samuels who got a first in­nings half-cen­tu­ry.

How­ev­er, Rad­ford point­ed out that the cur­rent weak­ness of the West In­dies was the fact they were an in­ex­pe­ri­enced side, es­pe­cial­ly in com­par­i­son to Pak­istan.

"I think at the mo­ment, we prob­a­bly lack a lit­tle bit of ex­pe­ri­ence. It's a young side with a cou­ple of wise heads and you com­pare that to Pak­istan who've got guys that have played hun­dreds of Tests all over the world," the for­mer Mid­dle­sex and Sus­sex Coun­ty play­er said.

"But I think what we are show­ing is a lot of fight and Dar­ren Bra­vo's two in­nings in Dubai were world class so we know we can put in those sort of per­for­mances and it's do­ing them con­sis­tent­ly, and when we have our team meet­ings that's what we talk about.

"There should be and there is a lot of con­fi­dence and a lot of be­lief in this team as it goes for­ward."

West In­dies are cur­rent­ly locked in bat­tle with Pak­istan in the sec­ond Test here, end­ing the sec­ond day on 106 for four in re­ply to the hosts' first in­nings of 452.

CMC