BAS­SETERRE – The West In­dies capped off a com­mand­ing 3-0 ODI se­ries vic­to­ry against Bangladesh in St Kitts on Thurs­day, with debu­tant Amir Jan­goo steal­ing the spot­light. The left-hand­ed bats­man etched his name in the record books by be­com­ing on­ly the sec­ond West In­di­an in his­to­ry, af­ter Desmond Haynes, to score a cen­tu­ry on de­but.

Re­flect­ing on his mile­stone, Jan­goo de­scribed the mo­ment as a dream come true. “It’s an amaz­ing feel­ing. Scor­ing a cen­tu­ry on de­but is some­thing that peo­ple on­ly dream of. Grow­ing up, all I want­ed to do was play for the West In­dies, and know­ing that I could score a cen­tu­ry in my first game is just in­cred­i­ble.”

Jan­goo’s con­fi­dence at the crease was ev­i­dent, par­tic­u­lar­ly af­ter reach­ing his half-cen­tu­ry.

“Once I got past 50, I felt con­fi­dent. The wick­et was a bel­ter and ku­dos to the grounds­men for prepar­ing such a good pitch. I just fo­cused on ro­tat­ing the strike ear­ly and cap­i­tal­is­ing on bound­ary op­por­tu­ni­ties.”

The 26-year-old’s com­posed un­beat­en knock of 104 came at a crit­i­cal junc­ture for the team, who found them­selves in trou­ble ear­ly at 86 for four.

His 132-run fifth-wick­et part­ner­ship with Kea­cy Car­ty stead­ied the in­nings and paved the way for the his­toric 300-plus run chase. While Car­ty fell short of his cen­tu­ry af­ter scor­ing 95, Jan­goo was quick to cred­it his team­mate’s con­tri­bu­tion.

“Car­ty is such a class play­er, and he helped us win to­day. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, he didn’t get to triple fig­ures, but he played a big role in the vic­to­ry.”

The West In­dies’ four-wick­et vic­to­ry was not just about in­di­vid­ual bril­liance as it show­cased the team’s col­lec­tive char­ac­ter and re­silience.

Head coach Daren Sam­my and cap­tain Shai Hope have em­pha­sized the im­por­tance of con­sis­ten­cy in the team’s jour­ney to be­com­ing a dom­i­nant force in world crick­et, and Jan­goo is the first to ad­mit that he has bought in­to the phi­los­o­phy.

“The key for us is con­sis­ten­cy for us to be a great team, and we’re work­ing to­wards that. We have to win these kinds of se­ries and win them well. This 3-0 vic­to­ry is a step in the right di­rec­tion.”

Jan­goo’s call-up to the na­tion­al team came af­ter a stel­lar Su­per50 Cup cam­paign, where he demon­strat­ed re­mark­able con­sis­ten­cy. His de­but cen­tu­ry was a cul­mi­na­tion of months of hard work and prepa­ra­tion.

“It goes to show I’ve been bat­ting well and was ready for my chance. It’s amaz­ing to see that the hard work is pay­ing off.”

As the team looks ahead, Jan­goo hopes his dream de­but in­spires oth­ers to aim high. “Dream big and work hard. That’s what I did, and it’s sur­re­al to be here to­day.”

CMC