ST JOHN’S, Antigua (CMC) — West Indies Head Coach Daren Sammy has maintained that Batting Coach Floyd Reifer’s expertise and dedication is one of the main reasons behind the team’s batting improvements.

The West Indies produced a record-breaking batting performance against Sri Lanka in the opening Test on their way to registering an emphatic innings and 217-run victory on Sunday, their first Test win in almost two and half years.

Amir Jangoo scored a brilliant 233 and captain Roston Chase made 194, with the two sharing the largest ever sixth-wicket partnership in Test cricket history of 401 runs.

Their efforts helped the Windies post a mammoth total of 626 for nine declared — the first time the regional team scored over 600 runs in an innings since 2012.

Speaking in an interview on Tuesday, Sammy said Reifer’s impact could not be denied.

He said while Reifer had been criticised heavily in the past for the team’s batting woes, there had been significant improvement in the last few years in all formats because of his efforts.

“It’s a combination of Floyd Reifer and the willingness of the players, the work ethic of the players,” Sammy said. “We’re here to prepare them as coaches, but buying in to the preparation, buying into the different aspects and techniques and areas of improvement and committing to the work.

“But I have to single out Floyd Reifer for that. He gets a lot of flack when we’re not batting well, the cameras focus on him all the time, but he has never faltered. He’s been strong in his messaging, his work ethic is amazing, and he continues to put in the work with the batters, so I’m going to give him his flowers,” Sammy said.

“Just seeing in the Test arena and even in the One-Day International format as well, the amount of hundreds we’ve had over the last three years, it’s been slow but it’s progress and that’s what we’re about — trying to build on progress.”