Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: West Indies captain Shai Hope did not hide behind excuses after his side’s T20 World Cup campaign ended with a defeat to defending champions India at Eden Gardens. Instead, he stood up and took responsibility.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!India chased down a challenging 196-run target to knock the former champions out in a must-win Super Eight clash on Sunday. But Hope admitted the total could have been far more imposing had he accelerated at the top.“Yes, I’ll take the blame. I should have batted a lot faster — if that’s what you want me to say,” Hope said candidly in the post-match media interaction. “When you’re leading, you want to put your hand up and set the tone at the top. It didn’t happen for me today. I just didn’t get going.”
Hope’s 32 off 33 balls — including 17 dot deliveries — stalled momentum in a high-scoring contest. Though he insisted he was not batting poorly, he conceded that the tempo hurt the team.“In situations like this, when you’re struggling, everyone struggles. But I don’t think I was batting badly,” he explained. “I hit a few fielders and they bowled well. As much as you’d love to hit every ball for six, it doesn’t happen.”West Indies were 45 without loss in the powerplay after targeting 65–70. “We had a platform. With the batting depth we have, I didn’t see it as a big issue at the time, but we didn’t execute as well as we wanted,” Hope admitted.Despite late acceleration from Roston Chase, Rovman Powell and Jason Holder lifting them to 195/4, the total proved 20 runs short on a dewy surface.“Here in Eden Gardens, chasing is usually better, especially with the dew. It always becomes a factor,” Hope said, also lamenting his poor run with the toss. “I don’t think I could win a toss… that always puts me on the back foot.”Calling it a “game of small margins,” Hope added, “One team has to win.”He reserved special praise for India’s match-winner Sanju Samson, whose unbeaten 97 sealed the chase. “He shot the ball very nicely from the beginning all the way through to the end… very smart and calculated. You must give him an A-plus. But we wish he didn’t have that innings today.”Even in defeat, Hope chose perspective. “There are a lot of positives. Our bowling was much better… the powerplay bowling especially stood up.”
