Windies still confident as preparations start for India

PERTH, Australia, CMC – West Indies arrived in Perth yesterday still smarting from Friday’s heavy loss to South Africa but hoping to regroup ahead of next week’s clash with reigning World champions India.

The Caribbean team has been their usual inconsistent selves, winning two and losing two of their four outings to date in the ICC Cricket World Cup.

Their latest defeat – a 257-run thrashing at the hands of South Africa – came as a big blow to their quarter-final hopes but captain Jason Holder remained upbeat about his side’s progression in the tournament.

“I wouldn’t say it puts us onto the back foot. We still have two games left. We just need to take it one game at a time,” Holder said.

“We have to deal with India next in Perth, and we’re going to be aggressive. We’re going to play our normal style of cricket. We obviously have areas to improve on in terms of our death bowling and still if we could try to get a few more dot balls into the middle overs, and I think once we do that we’re still a force to be reckoned with in this competition.

“[Friday] was just the first off day with the bat. It’s a daunting task trying to chase 400, and so you have to go hard initially trying to get the runs, and we just didn’t get any momentum going today unfortunately.”

South Africa piled up 408 for five off their 50 overs, with captain AB de Villiers smashing a historic 66-ball unbeaten 162.

He was particularly severe on Holder, the six-foot, seven-inch seamer, belted him for 64 runs from the last two overs of his ten-over spell which cost 104 runs.

Holder returned, however, to top score with 56 off 48 balls as West Indies were bowled out for 151 off 33.1 overs, and said his confidence remained high.

“I am pretty good with my game at the moment. I think if you analyze my bowling … one player took me out in a sense. It happens. I just need to figure out what I can do better when things like that happen,” he explained.

“My batting, we had really nothing to lose, but we needed to get some runs on the board, try to help our run rate. just try to be positive and try to stay out there. I was struggling a bit with cramp and felt like I couldn’t go off. I just had to fight through it and try to put some runs on the board for the team.”

West Indies have lost top order batsman Darren Bravo who has failed to recover from a hamstring injury sustained against Pakistan last Saturday, and will now return home.