The West Indies may be on the brink of being ousted from the 2019 ICC World Cup but they still have a chance to step into the semi-finals if they can win their remaining four matches.
Skipper Jason Holder was still hopeful his side could achieve this goal even after their crushing seven-wicket defeat to Bangladesh at Taunton on Monday. Speaking during the post-match press briefing, Holder said from now on his team would play every match like a final to give themselves an outside chance of moving on, as one more loss and they will be completely out of this tournament.
“It is looking tough at this present moment but it’s not impossible," Holder said.
"We have to play every game as a final. We have to win every game left now to give ourselves a good chance and we don’t want to rely on other teams to help us. We have to control what we can.”
Having been put in to bat at the Country Ground in Taunton, the West Indies posted 321 for eight before Bangladesh pulled off the joint second highest chase in ICC World Cup history to leave the regional side's hopes of reaching the final four hanging by a thread, as they face table-toppers New Zealand and India next.
Holder said, “I felt at the halfway mark that we were still a few short. A par score on this wicket with the dimensions of the ground was probably 360 or 370 and we were well short of that.
“We knew in the first ten overs we had to knuckle down and get through that difficult period. But we should have been able to rotate the strike rate a bit better and find the boundaries more often.”
Shai Hope top-scored with 96 from 121 balls but Holder was frustrated with his scoring rate due to the fact that the ground is one of the smaller ones in the tournament.
He said, “It was good that Shai went deep but he could have shown a little bit more intent. We lost wickets at crucial stages and we needed one of the top four players to go to the end. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough.”
West Indies had no frontline spin option and the quick bowlers delivered plenty of short-pitched balls that Bangladesh’s batsmen dealt with severely.
But Holder defended the balance of his team, saying: “I felt the quicker bowlers should still have done the job – their spinners didn’t pose much of a threat.
“I don’t think the balance was the issue today. The execution was the issue and it hurt us. We needed new-ball wickets which we didn’t get. But they batted really well and you have to give them credit.
“We missed a crucial chance when Shakib (Al Hasan) top-edged down to fine leg off (Andre) Russell 's bowling and Shannon (Gabriel) should have come in and taken the catch. A few top edges didn’t go our way but we didn’t help ourselves in the field either.”
