Perth: West Indies captain Jason Holder blamed his team's poor batting for the defeat against India as he felt an ideal score on the WACA strip was 270 and not the 182 runs they managed in the ICC Cricket World Cup group league encounter, here on Friday.
Asked if they were 20 runs short, Holder said, "I think we were a little shorter than that. I thought the wicket was a good one to bat on but we just didn't play ourselves when we batted. I thought initially we should have been looking in excess of 270. I think the wicket was good enough to get that, we just didn't."
Holder knows that it's a tricky situation for them right now as they not only have to beat UAE in their last game but also hope that Ireland slip in their remaining three games.
"Well, I can only control what I can control. Whatever happens in those last preliminary games is beyond my control. What I can control is the game against UAE, and I can assure you that we are going to win that game by all means, and we just need to be aggressive and finish this preliminary round in a good manner," Holder said, putting up a brave face.
He said that some introspection needs to be done before the final match against UAE and the time off from cricket would help them do so.
"Well, we've got to sit and wait for it. There are a few more preliminary games to be played. We've got one more game and we've got some time off before that last game, so we've got to sit and wait and see how the table looks before our last game, and then we come up with a plan and a strategy how we go forward."
A lot has been spoken about Holder's ability to impose himself as a captain with so many senior players in the side, but the 23-year-old said he shares a good rapport with most of them.
"Well, I have a very good relationship with most players. It may not require me to be speaking to them in a team setting. I may just pull them one-on-one and just have a chat. We just sort of unlace things, try to work out stuff. Obviously, we didn't bat well in this game and we didn't bat well in the last game as well. So we just need to address a few areas.
"But there are ways that I will go about doing it. But we just need to be honest with ourselves and the batsmen just need to be accountable for putting runs on the board."
Holder was honest in his admission that he didn't harbour much hopes after their batting show.
"Well, it was clear to me we just didn't make enough runs. Yes, we did get wickets early on but we just fell away in the middle. It's tough trying to defend 182 on a good batting track in my opinion with a quality batting line-up as opposition. I think we just didn't bat well enough to do it."
The skipper also said that he didn't have any regrets about opting to bat first on a bouncy track.
"No, there are no regrets. I believe if we would have bat, it would have been a different game in the end. We've just got to put up our hands when we've done wrong, and we just didn't bat well enough today, and we just didn't get enough runs on the board."
The fast bowler also admitted that bowling 19 wides wasn't a good thing as they gave away 26 extras on the day but defended his bowlers.
"Yeah, in the circumstances where we bowl, we needed to be aggressive. It was quite clear that the short bowl was working for us, so I asked my bowlers to be aggressive. I would give up one or two wides for that. Probably 19 is a little bit too much, but in looking for wickets you have to take risks, and that was just ours, to deal with the short delivery."
Bowling coach Curtly Ambrose delivered what looked like a passionate speech before the start of Indian innings and Holder said it was a normal routine of the 'Big Man'.
"Well, he just gave us his normal speech. He's very passionate. He's very much into what he does, and he just tried to instill that confidence in us that the game wasn't finished. He said 'runs on the board whatever it is are runs on the board'.
"They still have to get them, and it was just important that we didn't go out there and just roll over. I just commend the way the guys went out there and fought to get six wickets. Trying to defend 183 is commendable but just unfortunately we just couldn't seem to be able to do it."
