In the second Test match between England and West Indies, the former team had a massive win by 113-runs. Held in Manchester, Windies captain Jason holder expressed his sheer disappointment. The visitors were asked to chase 312 runs, they lost wicket after wicket, bundling out for 198 on the final day.
Speaking in the post match ceremony, Jason Holder said, “We’re disappointed with the result. We have let ourselves down. England played a good game of cricket so they deserve all the credit. We could have stretched the game yesterday, but that’s when we let ourselves down and lost wickets in clusters. England bowlers challenged our batters a lot, stuck to their tasks, and held their lengths.”
“The batters got caught in the crease; we need to get forward or back and make sure we are decisive about playing or leaving and also with our footwork. We have a few days left to ponder these things. It’s a short-term problem, honestly. We need to understand scenarios better,” he further said.
“English bowlers tend to bowl long spells, so we need more grit and trust our defences for longer. No regrets about the toss, Stokes and Sibley deserve the credit for their innings. I remember we passed the bat a few times and put down chances, and we need to make sure that doesn’t happen in the final Test. We are experienced enough
“After a long layoff, we are getting used to the workload, and we just have to see how the bowlers pull up before the last game. We are here to fight, I know the guys are feeling this loss, and we’ll give it everything in this last game,” the captain went on.
West Indies coach Phil Simmons also expressed his disappointment with the batting performance. Speaking to the reporters post the match, he said: “They haven’t fired, so we’ve got to take that into consideration over the next couple of days.”
He also spoke about how he is concerned about Shai Hope’s form. “He’s gone four innings without a score (in this series) — in contrast to how we played over the last five or six months in the other formats, I am concerned now about his form.”
“We’ve had five or six fifties and no one has converted to a hundred,” said Simmons. “It’s something that we’ve been talking about a lot, and no one has taken up that opportunity in this game yet again, so it is disappointing. I think it’s critical that our batsmen carry on and make big hundreds. Our batsmen need to make hundreds because our bowlers have been doing their jobs,” he further added.
Brief scores: England 469/9 decl. & 129/3 decl. (Ben Stokes 78*; Kemar Roach 2-37) lead West Indies 287 & 137/5 (Jermaine Blackwood 55, Shamarh Brooks 52*; Stuart Broad 3-25) by 174 runs.
The third and final Test between the two countries is scheduled on Friday (July 24) at the same venue – Old Trafford, Manchester.
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