Passage to the Super Eights did not come in conventional fashion, but West Indies captain Darren Sammy was happy with his team's bowling effort in the decisive, rain-ruined ICC World T20 Group B match against Ireland in Colombo yesterday.

Having been assaulted by the Australian batsmen in their opening match on Saturday when West Indies lost on the Duckworth/Lewis method, West Indies rebounded against the Irish, restricting them to 129 in their allotted 20 overs.

Sammy had special praise for Ravi Rampaul, who was good at the start of the innings and at the death yesterday, and Chris Gayle, who had his first bowl in international cricket this year.

"I back our bowlers to come good. This was a much improved performance from the last game (against Australia). Big up to Ravi, the way he came back in this game. He must have been a little down on confidence but the mettle he showed out there tonight is good for us going forward in the tournament," Sammy said.

"To have Gayle bowling in international cricket for the first time after a while, came out good for us, so we have a lot of bowling options and I back my bowlers to restrict teams."

The skipper said everyone in the camp was eagerly looking forward to the next phase of the tournament. The Windies will travel to Kandy today where they will play all three Super Eights matches at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium.

They will have a full training session tomorrow before their first match against defending champiAons England on Thursday. First ball is 10 am Eastern Caribbean Time.

"We just believe we can go out there and win. Yes, I am aware of what happeAned back in the World Cup in the Caribbean, when England qualified without a win and won the tournament. As I said before, the most important thing is our belief and we just have to do well in the Super Eights," Sammy said.

"Obviously, England are the defending champions and we don't want to underestimate anybody. We just need to go out there and bowl properly and execute our plans. Not just (Sunil) Narine, our fast bowlers also bowled quite well today and everybody seems to be in good shape for the game against England. I am looking forward to it," the 28-year-old added.

"We are here and we have strong belief in ourselves and in the team. The first goal was to reach the Super Eights and we have achieved that. Now we need to start off very well against England. This is the business end of the tournament and we mean business. We have not played a lot, we have not played a full match, so we have a lot left in us."

West Indies Super Eights schedule Thursday: vs England at Pallekele Saturday: vs Sri Lanka at Pallekele Monday: vs New Zealand at Pallekele