HO­BART–West In­dies cap­tain Ja­son Hold­er has de­fend­ed the at­ti­tude and con­tri­bu­tion of his se­nior play­ers, fol­low­ing the side's em­bar­rass­ing in­nings de­feat to Aus­tralia in the first Test in Aus­tralia yes­ter­day, and be­lieves a stronger col­lec­tive ef­fort is need­ed by the team in or­der to turn the se­ries around.

Aus­tralia me­dia has been crit­i­cal of the at­ti­tude of the West In­dies se­nior play­ers, in par­tic­u­lar, bats­man Mar­lon Samuels, who they ac­cused of ap­pear­ing in­dif­fer­ent in his ap­proach through­out the con­test at Bel­lerive Oval.How­ev­er, Hold­er said the play­er had been show­ing the right at­ti­tude off the pitch.

"I think there's a lot of in­for­ma­tion shared in the dress­ing room," Hold­er told a post-match me­dia con­fer­ence.

"Se­nior play­ers pret­ty much get in­volved with play­ers of the likes of Mar­lon Samuels – he has a lot of chats with most of the bats­men – and we have Jerome Tay­lor lead­ing our at­tack hav­ing a lot of dis­cus­sion with the fast bowlers so I've been sup­port­ed there, by the fast bowlers and the se­nior bats­men.

"It's just about putting a strong col­lec­tive ef­fort to­geth­er on the par­tic­u­lar day � which we strug­gled with in the past. We need to cor­rect it go­ing for­ward in this se­ries."

West In­dies were noth­ing short of mediocre with both bat and ball through­out the game, as they tum­bled to an in­nings and 212-run loss – their worst de­feat to Aus­tralia for 84 years.

The Caribbean side's bat­ting col­lapsed in both in­nings, bowled out for 223 in the first in­nings and 148 in the sec­ond, to con­cede de­feat about half-hour be­fore tea on the third day.

For Hold­er, it was his third straight Test loss since tak­ing over as cap­tain ahead of last month's two-Test se­ries in Sri Lan­ka, and he said he was fo­cussed on try­ing to break the los­ing trend which be­gan be­fore his tenure.

"No doubt re­sults haven't gone my way and it's been tough times but I can think back and for a num­ber of years West In­dies crick­et has been like this," he point­ed out.

"[I'm] not mak­ing ex­cus­es for any­body but at the end of the day it's a sit­u­a­tion most of us came and found our­selves in. It is for this cur­rent group to pick our­selves up and find a way to turn things around and the on­ly way we can turn it around is by per­for­mances.

"Bats­men need to take the onus up­on them­selves and make runs and with ball in hand, bowlers need to do sim­i­lar­ly by tak­ing wick­ets, that's the on­ly way we can move for­ward."

Left-han­der Dar­ren Bra­vo and open­er Kraigg Brath­waite were the on­ly pos­i­tives com­ing out of the lop­sided con­test. Bra­vo stroked 108 in the first in­nings – his sev­enth Test hun­dred – while Brath­waite struck an at­tack­ing 94 in the sec­ond in­nings in a des­per­ate at­tempt to sal­vage pride for the Windies.

As the Windies looked to re­group ahead of the Box­ing Day Test in Mel­bourne, Hold­er said it was im­por­tant the play­ers drew mo­ti­va­tion from those per­for­mances.

"I think we need to look at in­spired per­for­mances like the way Dar­ren Bra­vo played. He showed once he ap­plied him­self and spent time that runs could be made out there," the 24-year-old all-rounder not­ed.

"Again, how Kraigg Brath­waite played in the sec­ond in­nings, a re­al­ly fight­ing in­nings. He just changed gears at the end push­ing for a hun­dred but un­for­tu­nate­ly he didn't get it.

"I think we just need to look at those in­spir­ing per­for­mances, prob­a­bly look back at per­for­mances where we have done well in the past and just try to re-live those mo­ments in­to this Test se­ries."

CMC