West Indies vice-captain Nicholas Pooran spoke about his team’s struggles against Indian spinners during their defeat in the first T20I in Eden Gardens. The hosts defeated the visitors by 6 wickets in a contest that had its exciting moments.
Asked to bat first by Rohit Sharma, who won the toss, opener Kyle Mayers gave West Indies a good start as they reached 44 for one in the first six overs but then the Indian spin duo of Yuzvendra Chahal and debutant Ravi Bishnoi grabbed three wickets between them to derail their innings in the middle overs and restrict them to 157 for 7 at Eden Gardens.
"We felt 10-15 runs short to be honest. A total of 170-75 would have been a good score on this track. We can't really fault the bowlers. As batters we needed to play a bit smarter,” Pooran said at the post-match media interaction here.
Urging the batters to buck up, he said: "Again it's our batting (that needs to improve). We played the spinners fairly okay today. We just want to continue to build partnerships. We just need to negate the spinners a bit better.
Today we were in two minds whether to attack them or keep them out of the game and we got caught in two minds there. So small fixes and minor adjustments needed to be done. We just need to be a bit more creative in the next game and execute our plans well."
Pooran, who top-scored with 61 for West Indies, also said the heavy dew helped the Indian batters in the chase, though after a flying start thanks to Rohit Sharma’s 40 in 19 balls, West Indies hurt India by removing him, Virat Kohli, and Rishabh Pant in quick succession.
"It (dew) was a big factor obviously. If you look at the game then you see the bowlers struggling to grip the ball in the last five overs. I think the wicket played better in the second half of the game. The wicket was a bit tricky... I think the ball was stopping a bit. They bowled well. The wicket was two-paced. Even the spinners and seamers when they bowled back of the length, it was hard to judge the pace of the wicket," Pooran said.
He signed off by saying: "Hitting through the line was difficult early on in the innings. There was a lot of dew as you can see a lot of guys wiping the ball so a lot of full tosses were bowled in the end."
The second T20I will be played on February 18 in Kolkata.
(PTI inputs)
