After suffering a 3-0 whitewash in the T20I series against India, West Indies skipper Kieron Pollard said his team shouldn’t feel disgraced as the scoreline doesn’t indicate the fight put up by them.
Riding on Suryakumar Yadav’s swashbuckling 65 and pacer’s spirited bowling effort, India won the third T20I by 17 runs to complete a series sweep on Sunday (February 20).
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“Yes we lost 3-0 but the guys put their hands up and gave a good account of themselves. I don’t think we should be disgraced by what has taken place,” Pollard said in the post-match virtual media interaction.
“We are not happy losing, let me put that on record. It’s not like that at all. We are trying to win cricket games.”
West Indies had the chance to level the series in the second T20I with Rovman Powell and Nicholas Pooran hitting dazzling fifties in a 100-run partnership. But the home team fought back with Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowling a tight penultimate over as the visitors fell eight runs short of the target.
“It just goes to show the fine line in International cricket between winning and losing, and the margins for error — when you are bowling or batting,” Pollard said.
“Executing in the backend is something we need to work on. From a bowling perspective, for the first 15 overs of this game, we had India right where we wanted them to be.
“Right through the series, it was just a matter of finishing off the games in the back-end. From a batting perspective, 157, 180 (178) and 170 (167) we did fairly decently.”
Nicholas Pooran returning to form was the biggest positive for the West Indies. The southpaw hit three successive half-centuries to finish the series with 184 runs at an average of 61.33.
“I thought it was a good series. The guys put their hands up and gave a good account of themselves. We are a work in progress and will get some time to think about things,” Pollard said.
“Nicholas was outstanding. He had the consistency we had asked for. I don’t want to take up the word consistency and take the word responsibility and make it sound like he has to do the job. At the end of the day, he’s a young player and we want him to be consistent.
“He’s still learning his craft but he has what it takes to be a force to be reckoned with as a batter and as a leader in International cricket.”
Pollard reserved special praise for Roston Chase, who came as a forced change for an injured Jason Holder and finished the series as the leading wicket-taker with 6 scalps at an average of 10.33.
“Chase played well for the team. He came in and showed what he can do. Even Sheldon Cottrell bowled very decently in the first two games. All in all, all the guys put up their hands,” he said.
“Fabian Allen came back today. You have to give the guys exposure as well. You may never gonna get it right but you have to try different things to see what the guys have to offer.
“We are not chopping and changing for the sake of it. The guys come in, play their roles and then you go back and check if you played your role as an individual. That’s about it as a team. We have to give guys opportunities and we have to win as well,” he further remarked.
(With PTI inputs)
