Allrounder Jason Holder has put West Indies’ loss in the first T20 against Pakistan largely down to the unfamiliarity factor, according to ESPNCricinfo.
Shadab Khan, the 18-year-old debutant legspinner, did a lot of the damage as West Indies were kept to 111 for 8 in Barbados, a total Pakistan chased down with 17 balls and six wickets to spare. Going into the rest of the series, Holder said West Indies would need to come up with plans to counter the new faces they are up against, especially the spinners.
“We need to just sit down and work out our plans against all their bowlers,” Holder said. “Obviously we are coming up against some guys who we have never played. In this situation, we need to find how best to play them given the conditions that we have.
“We struggled with their slow bowlers, and it’s a situation where we need to counteract their slow bowlers in the middle. Those were the guys who really put the strangle on us up front.”
According to ESPNCricinfo, Holder said while the pitch was slow, it was not to blame for West Indies’ score; that was down to the early run-out of Evin Lewis and the repeated loss of wickets at “crucial stages”.
“I felt that the wicket we had today was slow, it was a little bit more difficult to hit on. It broke up a little earlier than I thought it would, but bearing that in mind, we just needed to find ways to knock some balls back down the pitch. It was a good enough pitch for us to get 150 at least. Definitely think if we had 150 on the board it would’ve been a much better game.
“It’s clear we didn’t bat well. We started off with a run-out, which gave them momentum. It was a very good piece of fielding, but we never really recovered from there. It was a situation in the middle where we had to consolidate, build a partnership.
The second of four T20s will be played in Port of Spain on March 30.
