'We've been taught a lesson' - Sammy

Darren Sammy has admitted that West Indies were exposed completely by the 2-0 defeat against India after three-day defeats in both Kolkata and Mumbai. Sammy admitted West Indies learned a "lesson" but said that his team was better than the result would indicate.

"Yes, it's very disappointing. We never turned up in the series," Sammy said. "We left the Caribbean at the back of six Test victories, against Bangladesh, New Zealand and Zimbabwe. Coming here really taught us a lesson, exposed us, taught us how far we are behind the top four teams in the world. We've just not turned up."

Sammy said West Indies were aware about how cricket would be secondary in the series that was Sachin Tendulkar's farewell to cricket. But in the end they ended being too benevolent to India, Sammy felt.

"I was speaking to a good friend of mine and he summed it up very well. He said we knew you were coming here to a celebration, and (hope) you got a lot of gifts. That's what we did. Rohit making his debut Test series, gifts - two hundreds. Mohammed Shami making his debut, gifts - lots of wickets. We just didn't turn up.

"And I personally have been very disappointed, not just for me but for the team as well. It's a good lesson for us, as we head down to New Zealand, for our next Test series, we've got to bounce back and come back strongly," he said.

However much honest Sammy can be, West Indies have a lot of areas to improve on. The maximum West Indies lasted across their four innings was 78 overs; In their second innings in Mumbai they failed to last even 50 overs. Only Marlon Samuels and Denesh Ramdin managed to hit half-centuries. Kemar Roach's shoulder injury at the outset of the series exposed the bowling completely as Tino Best, despite his honest toil, remained inconsistent and Rohit Sharma extracted maximum advantage of the Barbadian's wayward bowling by picking easy runs.

The only bright spark was offspinner Shane Shillingford, who finished as joint second-highest wicket-taker (11) in the series. Unfortunately for him, he did not have any partner who could multiply the pressure he was trying to create and that allowed India an easy escape route many times.

"We won six Test matches against teams we were ranked higher than," Sammy said. "Now we play against team that are ranked higher than us, it was an opportunity to showcase what we have. What we displayed over the last two Test matches, or over six days, we're much better than that. If you look at the way we played, every time we've been under pressure, we've not responded well."

In his post-mortem of the defeat in Kolkata, Sammy had pointed West Indies were defeated in the mind. Today he once again cited the same reason. "I guess it's is a mental thing. Myself as captain has not led from the front at all in this series. We deserve all the criticism that and the comments that have been thrown at us," Sammy said.