Nicholas Pooran defended West Indies’ choice and praised Romario Shepherd and Akeal Hosein after their late beating gave England a fright in Barbados. West Indies slipped to 65 for 7 and 98 for 8 in chase of 172 in the second T20I at Kensington Oval, but Shepherd and Hosein put on 72 runs in just 29 balls for the ninth wicket to take them to a one-run defeat. Fans can buy England vs West Indies T20 Tickets from our website.
Akeal and Shepherd have been working truly hard on their batting, Pooran, the vice-captain, said. We know in our squad we have a long list of hitters. We saw something special from Akeal and Shepherd. Kudos goes to them, they didn’t give up at all, but that goes to show the asset in our squad. Tonight was their night, we misplaced the game by two runs, but the next night somebody else can turn up to the party.
Not only tonight but in the Ireland series, showed that he is a talented batsman and tonight he struck the ball as good as anyone. We continuously give him some thunder that he’s batting No. 11 for us but he saves proving to us that he’s a batsman. I’m happy for him, he’s working truly hard, not only as a bowler but as a batsman as well.
Pooran also protected the selection of Odean Smith, the all-rounder, whose participation has been minimal across the first two T20Is due to the West Indies’ excess of options in their middle order. Smith has bowled a solitary over in the series so far, yielding four runs, and hit 7 off 3 balls from No. 8 on Sunday night, but Pooran said that Kieron Pollard’s victory with the ball meant he had simply not been required.
He’s playing as a power-hitter, Pooran said. He’s a superior player and we back him all the way to come out and perform his skills for us. In saying that, we have batsmen whom we know have to put our hands up and make innings in crucial positions and in crucial conditions.
At the end of the day we back each and each one in our squad here. We are not playing Odean Smith as a bowler. He’s an all-rounder, he just played the Ireland series and batted actually well as well. We back everyone in our team to play their role.
The captain came on and bowled in vital times, bowling crucial overs. In all honesty, he bowled an over yesterday and today he wasn’t compulsory. If you see the scores, Pollard bowled those four overs truly well yesterday.
Moeen Ali, whose all-around contributions earned him the player-of-the-match prize, described the West Indies side as really hazardous and admitted that England had been given a scare.
Even though they were 50 [55] for 5, six, or seven down for not several runs, they were never fairly out of the game, Moeen said. They’re such a dangerous squad. I know a lot of older players have been discharged and stuff but they’ve got so much aptitude, so much power.
The detail they bat all the way down to No. 10 makes them really dangerous, even in the condition where we thought we were going to cruise that game. For them to lose by one run, it’s actually fairly scary. Their batting line-up is very frightening.
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