West Indies wants to make Caribbean a fortress, says Roston Chase

West Indies wants to make Caribbean a fortress where visiting teams would want to come and fight hard to earn a win, captain Roston Chase said ahead of the second Test against Pakistan.

The home side heads into the second and final match at Queen’s Park Oval in Trinidad with a 1-0 lead after beating Pakistan by 90 runs in the first. It had, in June, also defeated Sri Lanka 1-0 in a two-match Test series.

“We’re very blessed and very happy for the results that we’ve been having at home so far. But I want to make home our fortress, where we make it very difficult for teams to come to the Caribbean and beat us,” Chase told reporters.

“Because it’s our own conditions, we know them inside out, and better than the opposition. So, I think we want to really make home advantage count, and we’ve been doing that well so far. We’re lucky to continue in the vein of form that we’ve been in, and to take victory in this second game,” the captain said.

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West Indies is currently eighth in the World Test Championship (WTC) points table and could overtake England at seventh if it beats Pakistan in the upcoming Test.

However, its chances of reaching the final are over, having only won two out of 11 matches. In 2025, it could only manage one win in nine matches.

“After having the year last year, we sat down with the plan and said that this is where we want to be. And as I said, we’re exactly where we want to be. We want to level up,” Chase said.

“We want to just come into this second Test, not take anything for granted, just go through the processes that we’ve sat down and talked about. We want to come and execute them to the best of our ability. And look to get that second victory.

There’s an ongoing off-field spat between head coach Darren Sammy and Alzarri Joseph over the fast bowler’s Test unavailability. However, Chase was in no mood to comment on the issue.

“I don’t have any comments. He’s not in the squad right now. We’re just looking to maintain the morale that we have in the squad right now and continue with the guys that we have right here. Whenever he comes back, he’ll be welcome.”

Published on Aug 02, 2026