Chris Gayle, the West Indies captain, believes a more mature outlook from his developing squad was responsible for the competitive efforts against Australia over the past three Tests. Australia won the series 2-0 but they were strongly challenged by an improving West Indies, who pushed all three matches to the fifth day and looked far better than their No. 8 world ranking.

“The guys are really enjoying their cricket and they’re becoming more mature and so on, so hopefully we can continue in the same vein,” Gayle said. “We played good cricket right throughout the series but unfortunately we came out the losing side.”

The result was confirmed on the final day in Barbados, where his men were pursuing a daunting 475 for victory, which was 57 runs greater than the highest successful run chase ever achieved in Tests. Gayle said West Indies genuinely felt they had a chance when Dwayne Bravo and Shivnarine Chanderpaul were building a 122-run stand.

“It was a good game today,” Gayle said. “I can’t fault the guys for the effort they’ve put in today, to put on 380 runs is pretty good but unfortunately we lost. We knew that it was not going to be easy, someone had to get a big hundred which we didn’t get in this game.”

A key moment came when Chanderpaul was lbw for 50 and it was only the third time Australia had managed to dismiss him during the three Tests. Despite the loss, Chanderpaul was pleased with the side’s resolve throughout the series.