After a disappointing loss against Sri Lanka in the ongoing ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, West Indies captain Kieron Pollard on Thursday said that their opponent played smartly and batted them out of the game, adding that his team was not good enough on the day.
Attacking fifties by Charith Asalanka (68 off 41) and Pathum Nissanka (51 off 41) followed by a clinical bowling by Wanindu Hasaranga (2/19) led Sri Lanka to 20 run win over West Indies in a super 12 match of the Men’s T20 World Cup on Thursday.
With this loss, defending champions West Indies have been knocked out of the tournament.
“We have been below par, in crucial games like this, we haven’t played well, we were not good enough. Was a good batting track, but 189 was a bit too much. They batted us out of the game, played smartly, 17 fours, only 3 sixes, they ran a lot of twos. That was the crucial moment there because they wouldn’t give us any chances but the bowlers kept coming. We wanted to restrict them to 120 or 140, but they batted really well,” said Pollard at the post-match presentation.
“We needed to be smart with our batting, like Hetmyer did, we knew what he could do, knock the ones and twos, and then find the odd boundaries, like Hetmyer did, that was one positive, but we need him to show more such consistency. The batting of Nic Pooran was good as well,” he added.
Pollard admitted that experienced players, including him, haven’t done well. However, he was impressed with young guys.
“We need to have batting smarts, we have the talent, we haven’t done well, we have to accept it, our experienced players haven’t done well, including myself. We need to look at those things going forward, a couple of young guys have put their hands up, that’s good news for the future,” he said.
