Mumbai, Feb 15 (PTI) West Indies captain Shai Hope on Sunday expressed satisfaction with different players stepping up to perform as the Caribbean side became the first team to qualify for the Super Eights in the T20 World Cup.
West Indies cantered to a nine-wicket victory over Nepal riding on Hope’s unbeaten 61 and Jason Holder’s 4/27.
“Form is one of those things… I’m not sure I’m a big fan of that word, because we are all international cricketers, we can get big runs one day and then the next day we can get a first ball (dismissal),” Hope replied when asked about his form and West Indies’ three consecutive wins in the T20 World Cup.
“It’s just about understanding what’s really working for you on the day. As a team head, I define who’s going well and try to support it, and vice versa. If someone’s not going as well as they would like (to), the others pull them along.” “But it’s good to see everyone chipping in in different and various ways. It’s not the same person necessarily performing every game, so it’s a good sign from the team standpoint,” Hope added.
Hope was full of praise for all-rounder Matthew Forde, whose measly returns of 4-1-10-1 helped West Indies take control of the match.
“… that goes to show how strong our squad is when you call upon anyone in the team, you have someone who can fill a hole,” he said about Forde, who had replaced Romario Shepherd in the playing eleven.
“He’s (Matthew) been an incredible person in the last few series, all the way from New Zealand when he came back from that injury. It’s great to have him back. He’s been bowling really well, and then you can see what he can do in the back end with the bat as well,” Hope added.
Hope said West Indies will look to attain their peak and build on a three-match unbeaten run.
“That’s what we set out to do. We all want to lift the trophy, but there’s a process to get there. Playing our best cricket, hopefully we can continue to peak and keep growing as a strong unit in all departments and when those crunch times come, we can always seize those moments and ensure we’ll be on top,” he said.
Holder admitted West Indies have made the most of the scheduling where they got to play at the Wankhede Stadium — a venue where the Caribbean side has four T20I wins from five matches.
“We’re building up quite nicely. I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves. We’ve just taken it one game at a time. We’ve still got a very important game against Italy left and then we move into the Super Eights,” he said.
On another note, Holder said the slower nature of pitches in the Caribbean is among the reasons why express pace bowlers are hard to find. “We don’t quite get the quick pitches that we used to get on a consistent basis in the Caribbean (earlier), so that may have a bit to do with it,” he said.
“You don’t necessarily have to be (an) express (pacer) to be successful at this level. But if you’re very accurate and skillful, you can get some good success here at this level.” “It’s important for Cricket West Indies to continue to put some support behind our fast bowlers to ensure that they keep developing their skills,” he said.
Meanwhile, Nepal’s senior player Sompal Kami admitted his side was not good enough after their impressive show against England and apologised for it.
“We were excellent against England but after that we did not play well. If you do not play well at the highest level, you cannot survive. We know we as a team are not playing as well as we would’ve liked,” he said.
“The way we played against England and now it’s totally different and we are upset. We just wanted to say sorry all the Nepalese cricket fans and we come (back) strongly for sure,” Sompal said. PTI DDV KHS
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