Here is the full transcript of Shai Hope’s press conference after the South Africa-West Indies clash
(Reporter:)
Obviously I’m not the result you wanted. Do you think it was a change in conditions and you haven’t been there yet, that the batsmen are maybe just trying to adapt to the extra bounce or something?
(Shai Hope:)
There are so many factors that you can come and discuss. Execution I think it always boils down to execution, but you’re right sometimes if you don’t adapt and evaluate as quickly as you’d like, then you find yourself playing catch up. In that situation I felt it was a very good surface, in fact it reminded me a bit of South Africa’s surface and maybe some of those surfaces we played in the last series we played against them. I felt like we were maybe 40, 50, even 60 runs short with the way the field was played. But again, like you said, maybe we didn’t evaluate it as well as we could have, and then obviously with the goals in the power play, they always pushed us back.
(Reporter:)
Just for the South African attack, I think we see they have a range of skills, pace on, pace off. how good are they
(Shai Hope:)
No, they are a very good team. Do you see how many years they have been doing this? All of them. And as a captain from Aiden’s point of view, it’s nice that you can use so many factors that they have there. Especially when you have a guy like Lungi who bowls those slow balls, I played with him in SA and saw how deadly they are. But yes, they are a very good team and I can say the same about our batsmen, but they outplayed us today.
(Reporter:)
You lost one match out of six. Do you think it’s fair that your journey in the tournament isn’t as difficult as it looks when you’ve been successful?
(Shai Hope:)
I wouldn’t say it’s a hard road. I think that’s the way it should be. Because when you get to the crunch time of the tournament, every opponent or every game you play now is supposed to be a challenge in some way and that’s why it’s the Super 8s, and if you get to the semifinals in the finals, that’s why there are better teams or the best teams in the second half of the tournament. So again, I wouldn’t say it’s something to jump off the board. But we have to make sure we play our better cricket now. We see the situation that may befall us in the next few days. So we have to make sure that we turn things around quickly and get a good result against India.
(Reporter:)
What was the idea of getting Rostan Chase in the XI and secondly – the next match is against India where Net Run Rate will obviously have a huge effect. So what is the thinking involved in this game?
(Shai Hope:)
As I said in the draw, it was more of a tactical decision with Chase, so they have some destructive left-handers in the top order and most of our bowling options were pretty much similar, so we’re just trying to have a bit more variety from that front. It’s very hard to leave all the guys who have been so good for us over the years, like Akeal Hosein, but I still think it’s very important in a tournament like this to make sure you give yourself the best chance in terms of pre-match or preparation. We just felt it would be the best 11 for today. We still didn’t do as well as we wanted to, so we could always look back and say, that guy should have played, that guy should have played. But it still boils down to the 11 that go there, whoever we pick, we still support everyone 100% to do the job for the team.
(Reporter:)
So today, even though you all lost five or six wickets at the start, you all still went your way as if the intention was still there. Was it a message that the team made up their minds or do you feel you all could have taken it a little slower after losing a quick wicket? Then you all could have had the extra 40-50 runs you were talking about?
(Shai Hope:)
With the evolution of T20 cricket these days, it’s hard to give a solid answer to this, especially now that there’s no right or wrong way to go about it. There are times when, say, Sheppy and Jason started off even harder. Who knows, we could have had 230, 240. And then the other way around, we could have tried to hold the innings together a little bit longer, and then maybe they got off once they started trying to ante out. So there’s no set way, or there’s no specific way that I think they should go about it, it’s just how best we can go about it on any given day in whatever situation we’re facing. The ideal situation would be for the openers to get off to a great start but all the way through the innings and have as many wickets in hand so you can go as hard as you want, but every game doesn’t go as we saw today, one of those games – it’s just a shame we didn’t get as many runs as we wanted, but I said I still feel like we’ve all got our work cut out for whatever situation we might face.
(Reporter:)
(inaudible)
(Shai Hope:)
So, like I said, we can sit here and discuss everything because I could bring in Motie, I could bring in Brandon King and then get a wicket. So it’s just a matter of how the cricket is played on certain days. The seamers from the South African side came into shape early on, got some movement and you can see what happened in our power-play. Similarly, I tried harder to play matches, but in this situation, every time they ended, Quinny didn’t actually strike. I wanted to get Roston into Quinny early but it just didn’t work out and Matthew was also getting into some form to start. It caused a bit of trouble but again that’s how it goes, sometimes everyday isn’t going to be the day we want it to be and things always turn out the way we want them to.
(Reporter:)
You lost four wickets on the power play and there was still no one to hold the runs at least at one end. They all seem to play more percentage shots than short shots. You played the way Hetmyer did – you hit sixes and stuff, but here he was dropped and he tried again and got out. So why wasn’t there a plan B to change it to play a bit of possession rather than go for your shots that you’re trying to make?
(Shai Hope:)
You want me to say you wanted to see guys tap the ball a little bit more that’s what you want me to say. As I said earlier, sometimes cricket is played the way it is played because there is no right or wrong way to bat. Because you can go for a big shot, there is a certain level of risk or an element of risk whenever you hit a shot. So if you want to challenge their team, their opposition, then you have to find, especially on a surface like that, which was so good. You still have to measure the risks in some way. And like I said, if we bat deep and get only 160 -150 on the surface, it’s always going to be a tough job. We’re going to ask too much of our pitchers. So I wouldn’t say we should have changed the way we went about it. Maybe a few decisions could be questioned but in terms of the kind of selection we say but we got up to 170 plus from the position we were in. So I think you’ve got to give the guys credit for that effort and something I always tend to do – you’ve got to look at the positives of any situation you’re faced with. Yeah, we always tend to, we like to focus on everything that went wrong, all the negatives, but from that situation I could always, I felt a certain level of confidence from a team point of view, knowing that, well, we were, what, 80 for 6 or 7 or something and we got to 177. So that has to give you a certain level of confidence. But like I said, there’s no right or wrong way, there’s no particular way to go about your batting, there’s no particular method to get to the score you’re looking for. But I just felt it was a good surface and I probably needed a few more today.
