Jason Holder isn’t too sad with West Indies’ show in first ODI

Despite the pummeling the West Indies were handed in the first ODI against India, captain Jason Holder feels that there are many positives that his side from the game.

Batting first, the Caribbean side had posted a stiff 323 run target but the Indians cantered to an easy win with skipper Virat Kohli and his deputy Rohit Sharma leading the way with hundreds each.

“I’m not too disheartened by the performance,” Holder said, as quoted by ICC’s official website.

“I thought the batters really put up their hands in this innings. Probably on this track, [we were] 20-30 runs short.

“I was pleased to get at least 300 because we’ve been faulted in the past for not getting up to 300 and maybe not batted a lot of overs as well. So it was pleasing to see the guys apply themselves. We were losing wickets at crucial stages as you pointed out, but it was good that we batted out all the overs and we got past 300. I still think there are a lot of positives,” he added.

That many in West Indies batting line-up got starts but failed to capitalise on them is a fact that would sting them a bit. Only Shimron Hetmeyer carried on and blasted his way to a hundred that took the Windies to 322 runs.

“[Hetmyer] was outstanding. It was good to see him get back to form…He had a lean patch in the Test series and pretty innocuous dismissals as well, so it’s good to see him get a score on the board. He’s been doing pretty well in the limited-overs format for us so it’s good to see him put up his hand and score a hundred today,” Holder said on the youngster’s third hundred in ODI cricket.

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“Hetty was quite aggressive. Fortunately for us, it worked out and it was really good to see him get as deep as he could. Unfortunately, at the stage, he got out although he could have gone a little further. But credit to the young player coming and scoring his third ODI century,” he added.

But classy knocks from Kohli (140) and Rohit (152*) took India home easily with 7.5 overs to spare after they lost opener Shikhar Dhawan in just the second over.

On the game-changing partnership, Holder said, “Today is just one of those days where two quality players took it away from us; they’re two quality, world-class players.

“The only way to stop them from scoring is by getting them out. Upfront we were obviously looking for wickets because we felt that that was the only way to win the game.

“I said to the guys there’s no point looking to contain. I thought we had a par score at the halfway stage; probably 30-40 runs short so we felt that we had to get some wickets with the new ball and get into their middle order as quickly as possible. It didn’t work out today, hopefully, in the next game we can get into their middle order a lot quicker,” he opined.