West Indies captain Jason Holder admitted that his side were as many as 50 runs short of a competitive total after they collapsed to a crushing seven-wicket defeat against Bangladesh.
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Having been put in to bat at the Country Ground, Taunton, West Indies posted 321/8 but Bangladesh pulled off the joint second highest chase in ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup history to leave the Windies’ hopes of reaching the semi-finals hanging by a thread with New Zealand and India to come next.
Holder said: “I felt at halfway that we were still a few short. A par score on this wicket with the dimensions of the ground was probably 360 or 370 and we were well short of that.
“We knew in the first ten overs we had to knuckle down and get through that difficult period. But we should have been able to rotate the strike rate a bit better and find the boundaries more often.”
Shai Hope top-scored with 96 from 121 balls but Holder was frustrated with his scoring rate, saying: “It was good that Shai went deep but he could have shown a little bit more intent.
“We lost wickets at crucial stages and we needed one of the top four players to go to the end. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.”
West Indies had no frontline spin option and the quick bowlers delivered plenty of short-pitched balls that Bangladesh’s batsmen dealt with severely.
Holder defended the balance of his team, saying: “I felt the quicker bowlers should still have done the job – their spinners didn’t pose much of a threat.
“I don’t think the balance was the issue today. The execution was the issue and it hurt us. We needed new-ball wickets which we didn’t get. But they batted really well and you have to give them credit.
“We missed a crucial chance when Shaikb (Al Hasan) top-edged down to fine leg off (Andre) Russell and Shannon (Gabriel) should have come and taken the catch.
“A few top edges didn’t go our way but we didn’t help ourselves in the field either.”
Of his side’s chances of progress to the knock-out stages, Holder admitted: “It is looking tough at this present moment but it’s not impossible.
“We have to play every game as a final. We have to win every game left now to give ourselves a good chance and we don’t want to rely on other teams to help us. We have to control what we can.”
(With inputs from ICC)
