Shai Hope admitted that the West Indies team will look to continue with the same aggressive intent with semi-final qualification at stake.
West Indies registered a thumping win by 9 wickets against their co-hosts USA at the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium in St Lucia on June 22, Saturday.
Hope played a whirlwind knock of 82* runs from just 39 balls as he hammered the USA bowlers.
After restricting the USA to 128 runs, Hope ensured that West Indies chased down the target within 10.5 overs.
After losing against England by 8 wickets in their first Super 8 clash, it was a much-needed win for the West Indies. With the clinical performance, they also boosted their net-run-rate to +1.814, the highest within the group 2.
However, their encounter against South Africa will be a crucial one, keeping the semi-finals in mind. A straight win for West Indies against the Proteas will ensure they make it to the next knockout stage.
Hope expressed his happiness on the West Indies team being able to bounce back after suffering a loss in the previous encounter.
“I would say very clinical, especially coming off the loss that we had a couple of days ago. It’s great to see the guys understood the assignment today, and we played the cricket that we wanted to play. It’s important for us to continue in this vein because we see what’s at stake now. But yeah, very happy with the bounce back that we did today and there’s a lot more cricket to play and we’re looking forward to it,” Hope told the media in the post-match press-conference.
The opener also affirmed that the West Indies team is looking forward to the clash against South Africa, the team that has maintained an unbeaten streak of 6 matches in the tournament so far.
“Not entirely the main aim today, coming out in the meetings as well, was just to get the win and ensure we play our cricket and the important thing is to focus on our skills, not necessarily get too far ahead of ourselves, because we understood the importance of winning the game first and foremost, because if we didn’t win the game then we know what’s going to happen – so winning the game and as long as we tick our boxes, then I think the rest will take care of itself and I guess that’s what happened to it,” Hope added.
South Africa’s match against the West Indies will be a virtual quarter-final, in case, England manages a win against the USA.
Replace Charles with Hetty and let Pooran open , replace McCoy with Shamar , that’s the winning team, but management lacks cricketing intelligence so it won’t be done and so SA will humble them