The West Indies put on a spirited run chase at St. Kitts to trump Australia and make the ongoing tri series far more exciting. The West Indians batted quite efficiently to chase down 266 with more than 4 overs to spare, thanks to some resolute batting by the experienced Marlon Samuels. Samuels led the way in West Indies’ run chase with his enterprising knock of 92 which included 8 boundaries and four massive sixes.
Post Australia’s second loss in the tri series, skipper Steve Smith pointed out several aspects behind his side’s loss. Smith mainly pointed out towards Australia’s poor show in the bowling and fielding department as a primary cause behind the defeat. The Kangaroos also slowed down a bit in their last 10 overs and once Usman Khawaja was dismissed for 98, the middle order seemed to be in complete disarray. That allowed the West Indies to build momentum for their chase.
“I think it was just a pretty sloppy display all together on the field. We didn’t bowl the right areas. We let them off a bit easy in that respect,” said Smith. “We’ve been doing the work, but this isn’t the standard that the Australian cricket team sets. So we got a lot more work to do to try and improve it. We set ourselves high standards on the field and want to be the best fielding team in the world so we have a lot of work to do to get to that mark,” he added.
Smith also added that the Australian new ball bowlers were not too accurate. “I thought we were a fair way off our lines and lengths and our fielding was pretty average in that first 10 overs of the game. When you are chasing 265 and you’re 70 for 1 after 10 overs then you are well on your way. We started pretty poorly with the ball,” Smith mentioned. “The guys just looked a little flat out in the middle and that’s how it might have looked from the sidelines as well. We made pretty costly errors early in the game and they cost us a fair bit.”
Elaborating about resting the lethal Mitchell Starc, Smith said, “He’s obviously just coming back into international cricket after an injury layoff. So we’re trying to take care of him as much as we can,” he said, before adding, “We’ve got a lot coming up- a test tour of Sri Lanka which we certainly have an eye on.”