The Windies captain reserved high praise for Sanju Samson, whose 97 not out settled the nerves and deal for India: Reports
KOLKATA: Having been denied a spot in the semi-finals, courtesy an excellent innings from Sanju Samson in their final Super Eight game at the Eden Gardens on Sunday night, West Indies captain Shai Hope reflected on what may have been.
First, he admitted the Caribbeans were a few runs short, given Eden’s reputation as a happy hunting ground for teams batting second. The skipper put his hand up. “I'll take the blame. I should have batted a lot faster,” said Hope, who took 33 balls to score 32.
“When you're leading, you want to set the tone at the top. It didn't happen for me today; I just didn't get going. But in situations like these, when you're struggling, everyone struggles. As much as you'd love to hit every ball for six, it doesn't happen. It's just that I was hitting the fielders and then trying to play the situation a bit more. I wanted to bat a little bit deeper into the innings and face most of the spin threat in the middle,” he added.
Hope conceded his team could have done better in the first six overs. “We wanted 65-70 in the Powerplay. We were 45 without loss, so we had a platform. With the batting depth we have, I didn't see it as a big issue at the time, but we didn't execute as well as we wanted,” he explained.
The Windies captain reserved high praise for Sanju Samson, whose 97 not out settled the nerves and deal for India. “He shot the ball very nicely from the beginning all the way through to the end, and paced it really nicely. He was very smart and calculated with the way he went about his strokes. You must give him an A-plus with the way he played today,” Hope said about the Indian opener.
Hope preferred to look at the bright side too. “There are a lot of positives (for the West Indies). Our bowling was much better than in the previous series. The Powerplay bowling especially stood up,” he pointed out.
