West Indies captain Jason Holder was unusually harsh on his team during the post-match press conference at the end of the first One Day International against Bangladesh at the National Stadium, Providence on Sunday highlighting sloppy fielding, poor execution and poor batting partnerships as some of the factors responsible for their defeat.
West Indies went one down in the first of three one dayers losing by 48 runs in a match where they dropped four catches and missed a few run out opportunities.
According to Holder the team’s performance was “generally not up to scratch”.
“We weren’t up to scratch today in the field, we were a little sloppy we missed a few chances.”
Bangladesh’s Tamim Iqbal and Shakib Al Hasan stroked 130 not out and 97 respectively, sharing a record breaking 207-run second wicket partnership but the West Indies had their fair share of chances with Iqbal being dropped on 17 and 20 while Hasan was dropped on 15 and 85.
Despite taking a wicket off the ninth delivery of the match, West Indies faded away in their bowling, unable to provide the break through as the two batsmen shared 43 overs together.
“We bowled pretty well up until the 45th over or so, we lost our way at the last couple overs,” Holder added.
The West Indies had contained the batsmen to a decent scoring rate but when Hasan departed, Mushfiqur Rahim blasted 30 from 11 balls and Bangladesh took 53 runs from the last three overs.
“Bowling at two set batsman at the end is difficult, and in terms of our death bowling I think we needed to execute a lot better,” said Holder. The batting too failed to click with Evin Lewis and Shai Hope unable to switch gears while the turning point in the innings seemed to be the run out of Chris Gayle for 40, a knock which included two sixes and one four.
“I think everyone expected Gayle to be his normal dominant self we just wanted him to impose himself on the power play maybe the surface was one you couldn’t blast though the power play and he adjusted his game and scored upfront was looking pretty good unfortunate for the run out,” he said.
“His wicket set us back, he was pretty much in and pretty much set and looking for him to go deep,” Holder added.
Guyana’s Shimron Hetmyer was the top scorer with a solid 52.
Speaking on the maturity of Hetmyer and the visible work required in order to have him bat longer, Holder said…“it’s something we been talking about a while know, he is probably one of the better players of spin in our dressing room and also one of the few left-handers.
“I just encourage him to go deep, I spoke to him before the game and one of the things we talked about was him batting until the 35th over before starting to expand.
“Probably the situation of the game may have dictated him to go a little bit deeper than the 35 but probably the 40th to give the hitters at the end to come in and execute their game but he is a young talented player and we just need to invest some time into it.”
Holder said the players did not execute well. “I felt the combination was good enough to win the game but didn’t execute well.”
He lament lack of batting partnerships, with the highest stand coming from the last wicket partnership between Devendra Bishoo and Alzarri Joseph.
Speaking on the wicket, Holder said… “It took a little spin up front cause it had a bit of moisture in the pitch and nothing you can’t really get around in terms of rotating and scoring probably a pitch you need to spend a little more time on in terms of getting yourself in and once you get set it gets easy, you miss one and two upfront and then it gets hard and we didn’t execute well.”
Nevertheless, West Indies believed that there were still a few positives with Hetmyer playing really well with the bat along with Bishoo and Joseph.
Holistically, the West Indies skipper noted that it was a general improvement in all departments that needs to be done in order to bounce back in the second match.
“I think we need to improve on all three departments, sharpen up yeah my general feeling was we weren’t good enough today and as I said we missed a few chances and our bowling could execute a lot better at the end.
“I think generally most bowlers went well and is a matter of taking it up a notch come Wednesday,” he said.
