“We have to continue to improve.

That was the call from West Indies bowling coach James Franklin after the five-wicket Duckworth-Lewis-Stern (DLS) defeat against Sri Lanka in the first One-Day International of a three-match series at Pallekele Sunday.

The Windies, who batted first on Sunday, recovered from 54 for three to 185 for four after 38.3 overs as rain ended their innings prematurely. The hosts set a revised target of 232 from 37 overs and reached 234 for five with 31 balls remaining.

“I think we can be better in all three skills,” said Franklin, the former New Zealand all-rounder. “We are on a journey as an ODI team and we need to keep improving and try to move further up the rankings.”

“We come here to Sri Lanka and they have always been a difficult team to beat in their own conditions. We know we have a big challenge, but we also know that there were certain moments in the game where we came out on top. We were in control in certain phases of the first game and we just need to do that for longer periods of time,” Franklin added.

With the ball, the Windies assistant coach wants to see better execution while he wants the batters to show good intentions against the Sri Lankan spinners.

“We are down 1-0 in this three-game series and have a few days to reflect and work on improvements for the second game,” he said.

Franklin continued: “From a batting perspective, we just have to show good intent against these Sri Lankan spinners. They are of high quality and we know that in this part of the world a good strategy against spin goes a long way and it is important that we are confident with our method, implement it on the day and put Sri Lanka under pressure with both bats put and ball.”

“Although yesterday (Sunday) was disappointing, we know that we are still in this series and that we have a big game ahead of us on Wednesday (tomorrow) and that we just need to prove our abilities for longer,” added he added.

“We are on a journey as an ODI team and we need to keep improving and try to move up the rankings in the ICC table,” he explained.

“We know what surface we're going to get, it's going to be a very similar surface again, so we're going to prepare well today and tomorrow and make sure we're a little bit better or better with our execution.” “Our execution with the ball “, he added.

The second game starts at 5am (T&T time) tomorrow, while the final takes place at the same time on Saturday.