West Indies captain Jason Holder is blaming horrible shot selections for his team’ s humiliating six-wicket loss to Australia in the second match of the Ballr Tri-series at the Guyana National Stadium on Sunday evening.
West Indies went into the match on a high after defeating South Africa by four wickets in the opening match of the series on Friday night. However, they were brought down to earth on Sunday, as they slipped from 50 for one to 116 all out in the face of excellent spin bowling.
In reply, Australia coasted to victory at 117/4 and lead the standings. Today, they will come up against South Africa in their second match.
Looking back at Sunday’ s game, Holder said: “If you went through the dismissals, there were quite a few soft dismissals. The Australians challenged us in terms of building pressure, but I don’ t think they got us out with any spectacular balls, per se. We just played some horrible shots out there at a crucial stage of the game which cost us our wickets.
“We never really got any partnerships going. Just not enough runs on the board, to be honest. The bowlers didn’t really have anything to bowl at, although we tried really, really hard and did get four of the Australians’ wickets. I thought Sunil Narine came in and did an excellent job in the end and we got some wickets up front.”
West Indies lost Andre Fletcher for four to the fifth ball of the game and never really recovered despite a 44-run, second wicket stand between top-scorer Johnson Charles (22) and Darren Bravo (19).
Once Bravo gifted his wicket in the 12th over with a loose drive to cover off seamer Mitchell Marsh, West Indies capitulated from 50 for one to lose their last nine wickets for 66 runs. Carlos Brathwaite and Sunil Narine added 20 for the 9th wicket but apart from these two, there was no other meaningful associations.
“I think anywhere between 210 and 220, we backed ourselves to defend,” he said. “Previous games we played here, there were not many that were high-scoring. Obviously, the first game we played, one team only got 180-odd and we managed to win the game in the second-last over.
“I think we’ve bowled reasonably well for the first two games; the bowlers have really put up their hands. It’ s just important for the batsmen to build partnerships, especially up front, and just give ourselves some cushion in the middle and be able to blast at the end with the power we have in the dressing room. But the most important thing for us is to get some partnerships going up front and let the momentum flow through the mid-innings.”
West Indies now have a long break before taking on Australia next Monday at Warner Park in St Kitts, in the second leg of the tournament.
STANDINGS
Team P W L NR T Pts
Australia 1 1 0 0 0 5
West Indies 2 1 1 0 0 4
South Africa 1 0 1 0 0 0