Here is the full transcript of West Indies captain Shai Hope’s post-match press conference after their five-wicket loss against India in the Super 8 match at the Eden Gardens Kolkata on Sunday, March 1.
(Reporter:)
From the perspective of a bowling team captain, can you tell us about the innings that Sanu Samson plays, why they looked unstoppable, why you couldn’t have any plans against him?
(Shai Hope:)
He played really well, he’s a good player because it’s also a good surface. Especially on a night when you’re chasing a pitch like this at Eden Gardens, it’s usually easier to score freely. But I’m not going to take anything away from him, like I said, he’s a quality player, he’s been playing really well for so many years and it’s one of those things – the hitter is just the better of our pitchers. It’s part of the game too, you have to give credit for the innings he played today.
(Reporter:)
When West indies were batting – you would say you had to take a bit more of the onus to score a bit faster, your innings became the difference – 15-20 runs that West indies didn’t get.
(Shai Hope:)
Yes – that’s my answer. Yes
(Reporter:)
I appreciate you taking responsibility by saying yes to that question, but some of the technical aspects of today’s game, your innings — there were 17 runs in 33 innings, only 10 offensive shots according to the broadcasters, can you tell me if you were struggling or if you were timing it, but they were finding fielders and in their own innings, your rating today.
(Shai Hope:)
A little bit of both, it’s one of those things, sometimes you just don’t get the ball. As much as you’d like to come in and hit every ball for a six, it just doesn’t happen. I also hit a few fielders today so that doesn’t help. And I thought they played pretty well to be fair, but again – something you want to be better at, especially at the top of the innings, you want to set the tone for the batting, and even as a captain. Especially when you’re leading – you want to raise your hand, but you can’t today.
(Reporter:)
If you look at your own performance, you were prepared and planned – at first glance it looked – they tried to take the pace of the ball today. You had a plan throughout the campaign, even with a slow start you had powerful hitters at the back. So today you would like to do it again – highlight a game of small margins and 20-25 runs. That’s about all.
(Shai Hope:)
It’s always a game with small margins because then we look at it this way, as I said in the press – it was the last game. We could go hard in the power play, take 3-4 goals. Stand on your hind legs. You have to take everything positive from the situation. Yeah, we wanted to be 65-70 on the power play, but we weren’t goals down, so we actually had the platform set. So even though I personally would like to be a bit more fluid in the power play, you have to take things in perspective and today it doesn’t matter – I think we were 45 in the power play without a loss. With the batting depth we have. I don’t see it as a big deal, but I’m obviously going to cry a lot more. Those are the standards we’ve set as a team, but you talked about the planning, that’s something I have to commend all the guys on. We were very precise in the way we wanted to play and we played against every opposition throughout the campaign. And the execution was the biggest thing for us. Today we didn’t perform as we wanted in the power play from the batting side, as you say. But I always have to take the positive from something. We were down 4-5, Chase came in his first start of the game, he came in and pitched really good innings. So like I said before, you have to make sure that when you make a decision like that that you know you have some foundation to back it up – but yeah, there’s so many things at play, so many factors, so many areas that you could pick up on, and like I said before, there’s so many – so many things that you say yes to, or maybe you should change it, or maybe you should do a little less or something else. But it’s cricket, very small margins and one team has to win.
(Reporter:)
It was a really challenging day. And again, everybody talks about your technical aspect, where it’s your batting or catching or whatever. But mentally, how hard is it to bear such losses? And mentally, how much responsibility do you feel, like yes, I could have done something better, or this loss is due to my slow shifts or mentally – not like technically, how hard it is.
(Shai Hope:)
You all make me laugh. Yes, I’ll take the blame if that’s what you want me to say. I should have hit much faster. That’s what you wanted me to say. But in situations like this, when you fight, everyone fights. But like I said, I don’t think I batted badly. I was just hitting the players in the field and then trying to play the situation a bit more. Obviously, I wanted to bat a bit deeper into the innings and face most of the spin danger in the middle. But I just didn’t go today. But yes, I take the blame. So that’s what you want me to say.
(Reporter:)
I have a non-cricket question for you. In the midst of the World Cup, you must be aware that there is a war going on in West Asia. Did you ask the support staff how to get home? what are your plans
(Background)
I don’t think he can answer that question now.
(Shai Hope:)
I just wanted to ask how it was playing at second with dew and just talk about that match with Akeal in front of the left-hander when Abhishek was batting. What was the idea? And how difficult was the dew operation? Did you have runs on the board so did you play any part in that run starting to go in that direction?
(Shai Hope:)
He always does here in Calcutta. Whenever you play games, the chase is always the better thing to do, especially when you have to contend with the dew factor. I don’t think I can win the lottery, so I always give the guys the hard way. I don’t think – have I won this tournament? One? Good. Probably before that, the rest of the series, maybe one or two. So I’m thinking six throws for 30, 35, 40. Yeah, so that always puts me on the back foot. But yes, dew plays a role here in the Gardens of Eden. He played really well with Akeal on the power play. He is preparing a game for us. Now, you see, he’s getting some wickets. And we felt like it was a match, obviously they had a left and right combination this time. I think in previous games or at the beginning of the tournament they started with two lefties. It’s just a matter of having the resources and making the best use of them. Because Akeal is one of our main power forwards and he’s been doing really well at this stage. Along with Matthew Ford who had a really good tournament with the ball. I think he was very, very, very good, excellent with the new ball. But yeah, that’s just so many things we discuss in the planning stages leading up to this game.
(Reporter:)
Have you lost a match against Team India or Sanju Samson?
(Shai Hope:)
He played for Team India and did not bat alone. But he played a really good innings. Like I said, there were so many small margins, but you have to give a guy credit when he plays really well. He shot the ball very nicely from start to finish of the innings and it has a really nice pace to it. He was very smart and calculating with the way he went with the punches. But yeah, you have to give him credit for the way he played today. But we wish he didn’t have such shifts today.
(Reporter:)
I would say good luck for today. What are the takeaways from the tournament you played?
(Shai Hope:)
A lot of things – our bowling, I thought it was a lot better than the previous series and this is when you really want to build the bowling, especially the power bowlers, we’re really good. I thought we had 20-38 wickets from 40 in the group stages, so that was amazing in T20 cricket and then from a batsman’s point of view, Shimron Hetmyer did what he does best as a number three. There are a lot of batsmen coming in who are contributing to the bigger totals we’ve got in this tournament. But the feeling was fine in the patches, but again we have many areas that we could improve and you can choose the whole tournament, there is always something that you can improve, but there is always a lot of positives that you can take from it. So let’s leave the positives. Hetty played a really good tournament. Matthew Ford with the new ball, Akeal, Motie takes his wicket. Sheppey with a hat trick and five. There are so many things to talk about from this tournament. I think the boys represented the region well and I think we can all go home with our heads held high.
