THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, India, CMC – West Indies captain Jason Holder believes if his batsmen had made better shot selections India would have been chasing a target in excess of 300, as opposed to the paltry 105 which was required for victory.
India romped to a comprehensive nine-wicket victory over the Windies at Greenfield Stadium yesterday to win the five-match One Day International series 3-1.
After winning the toss and electing to bat, the visitors were skittled out for just 104, their lowest ever ODI total against India.
During the post-match press conference, Holder said he did not believe his decision to bat first was the deciding factor in the match.
“I thought the pitch would have been a good pitch, probably on the slower side, although I didn’t expect it to play that slow. I felt that India’s bowlers put the balls in the right areas, but if you look at a lot of the dismissals from our batsmen, some were poor shot,” the skipper lamented.
“I’m not particularly saying it was the pitch. I think we just needed to have a little bit more application and probably get ourselves in a little longer. I still felt like it was a good enough pitch that we could have made in excess of 300 runs if we had given ourselves a chance.”
Holder said while he was disappointed not to have tied the series, there were some positives to take away, despite the loss.
He said several of the young players had made their presence felt and he was looking forward to big things from them in the future.
“It was not the finish we were looking for. Obviously we lacked consistency in the last couple games and we just didn’t bat well enough today and it cost us. Still credit to the guys, I thought we showed an admirable performance coming up against India here in their backyard. There were obviously some bright sparks as well it’s just a matter of us picking ourselves back up. We have to look at our weak areas and attack them,” Holder said.
“[But] I’m still happy with the youngsters who came into the competition. Obviously Hetmyer was a bright spark, Shai Hope was a bright spark and Oshane Thomas definitely has something in him and just needs to work a little harder. There are still one or two things that we need to brush up on, a little more consistency is definitely needed in terms of our application and in the bowling department we still need to look for a few more wickets in the middle overs. I think once we do these things we’d be in better stead going forward.”
