Chennai, Mar 21: West Indies captain Darren Sammy hailed Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar as "a true gentleman" for walking back to the pavillion despite the umpire signaling not out in their World Cup Group B clash here.
Sammy appreciated Tendulkar's honesty as he chose to walk back to pavillion despite being declared not out by Australian umpire Steve Davis off a Ravi Rampaul delivery.
"It shows the measure of the man. He is a true gentleman. After 17,000 runs, he could walk. That was brilliant on the part of Sachin," Sammy said after his side lost the match by 80 runs here last night.
West Indies suffered a batting collapse while chasing 269 to eventually lose the match and Sammy hoped that his side would not repeat the mistake in the knockout stage.
"Good thing is that it is not a knock out stage. If that happened we could be leaving for home. Once we put our heads down we play each ball on its merit. We will come up with good shot. We created another winning opportunity by being 152 for 2 but let it slip away," Sammy said.
From 154 for two, West Indies were all out for 188.
However, Sammy took some positives out of the contest as paceman Ravi Ramapul took a five-wicket haul.
"It (Rampaul's performance) is one of the positives that we should take definitely. He came from the bench and grabbed the opportunity given to him," he said.
Sammy said he was not surprised when off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin opened the attack for India.
"It is no surprise. Many teams have done it in the world cup. What happened after the 30th over was important and all of us were watching we lost eight wickets," he said.
"He did what his captain wanted him to do. Bowled well and got his opportunities. He got an early wicket, he bowled well. He opened the bowling that shows the confidence the captain has in him."
Talking about Yuvraj Singh, who scored 113 and also took two wickets for India, Sammy said, "He played well. We had plans to take his wicket. We had a chance to get Yuvraj out but I was culprit to have dropped him twice."
On the possibility of West Indies-India semi final, he said, "We will have good time to beat them. We have to beat Pakistan and then it will be sweet revenge to beat India at home." PTI
