NEWS
Follow UsAfter a great performance in the group stages, during which the West Indies didn’t lose a single game, they suffered their first loss of the tournament against defending champions England at the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium in Gros Islet, St Lucia.
West Indies scored 180/4 batting first, however, England batters Phil Salt (87 off 47 balls) and Jonny Bairstow (48 off 26) made small work of the chase by polishing off the target with 15 deliveries in hand.
Despite that, the crowd at St Lucia came in good numbers to support the local side, and Sammy acknowledged that wholeheartedly ahead of their game against the USA on June 21.
“It was a pleasure to see and experience St Lucia,” Sammy said.
“We asked them to come out and support the team and to just see the stadium, the amount of people that came. This is what the World Cup is about, playing at home. And I must say massive thanks to St. Lucia for coming out and supporting the boys.
Obviously, they might be disappointed at this result, but the effort in making sure they filled the stadium, that was really, really good to experience.”
When asked what went wrong for the Windies against England, Sammy blamed execution.
“I think, look, we were asked to bat first. We were about 25 runs short on this wicket,” Sammy acknowledged.
“Having said that, we got it to at least 10 runs an over at one point. We did not execute our plans well enough. Couple chances here and there. But in a tournament, there's a game where the opposition will get the better of you. But that doesn't mean you're out of it.”
Despite the loss, Sammy seemed upbeat about the Windies' chances going forward in the Super Eight stage as they’ll face South Africa and the USA in short turnarounds as they manage travel and training together.
“This loss will not dampen our spirits,” Sammy claimed.
“We still believe we got a team that could win this World Cup. And that's what I tell the guys inside when I speak to them. Pack this game, put it in the garbage. And we move forward to Barbados, where we win against USA. And then we have South Africa in Antigua on Sunday. And we're going to take it one game out of the two games to go. And then we have potential four games left in the tournament. Yeah, that's how I see it.
Today we came up against the defending champions and they got the better of us. But like I said before, that doesn't mean our tournament is over. Our destiny is in our own hands and I feel I got 15 group of men that really believe that this tournament they could win.”
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