Daren Sammy urges West Indies to move past England defeat
West Indies coach Daren Sammy has urged his team to forget their eight-wicket loss to England and focus on winning their upcoming matches to keep their T20 World Cup hopes alive.
In St Lucia, where the stadium bears his name, West Indies set a target of 181 for England. However, the defending champions chased it down with ease, thanks to a solid partnership between Phil Salt and Jonny Bairstow. Sammy admitted his team was “about 25 runs short” of a winning total on a flat pitch.
“It’s part of the game,” Sammy said. “This loss will not dampen our spirits. We still believe we’ve got a team that could win this World Cup. I’ll tell the guys inside: park this game, put it in the garbage, and we move forward to Barbados where we win against the USA, and then we have South Africa in Antigua on Sunday.
“No-one said it was going to be easy. There are good teams in the tournament. Today, we came up against the defending champions and they got the better of us. But that doesn’t mean our tournament is over. Our destiny is in our own hands, and I feel I’ve got the 15 men that believe we can win this tournament.”
West Indies made two changes to the team that beat Afghanistan on Monday, bringing back Roston Chase and Romario Shepherd. They replaced Shai Hope and Obed McCoy, who took 3 for 14 against Afghanistan but was left out against England.
“We could talk about it now in hindsight, but I’ve said it from day one: we have 15 potential match-winners,” Sammy said. “Obed did bowl well against Afghanistan, but if you look at what Shepherd has done for us over the last year in T20 cricket, what he brings to the team, we thought going against England, especially with the potential line-up they could have, Shepherd was the right option.”
Currently, West Indies are at the bottom of the points table in Group 2 of the Super Eight. They will need to win against both the USA and South Africa to qualify for the semi-finals. “We did not execute our plans well enough – a couple of chances here and there – but in a tournament, there’s a game where the opposition will get the better of you,” Sammy said.
“But that doesn’t mean we’re out of it. Now, in order to win, we’ve got to win all our matches and that’s what we’ll focus on. We’ll leave this game right here in St Lucia. It’s a short turnaround: we go to Barbados tomorrow and on Friday we have a game against the USA. We’ll meet as a selection group and see how best we could further improve our team based on the conditions.”
With this positive mindset, Sammy hopes to rally his team and reignite their campaign to achieve an unprecedented third men’s T20 World Cup title.