Solutions needed ahead of England tour, says Holder

KINGSTON, Jamaica, CMC – Captain Jason Holder says West Indies need to find solutions to their batting woes by the time the next one-day series rolls around against England in September.

Speaking following their eight-wicket defeat to India in the fifth One-Day International here Thursday which dealt the hosts a 3-1 series loss, Holder said there were issues which needed to be addressed and urged players to go away and work on developing their game over the next two months.

“We’ve got to find ways to rotate the strike more in our middle overs. Batsmen have gotten starts in this series but not carried on,” the 25-year-old pointed out.

Jason Holder

“I think we’ve got roughly a month or two before our one-day series against England. That’s a perfect opportunity for guys, especially those not playing Test cricket, to go back and work on their games and try to enhance their games by the time we start in England.”

Needing a victory on Thursday to snatch a share of the honours in the five-match series, West Indies again batted poorly and were restricted to an inadequate 205 for nine off their 50 overs.

Top-scorer Shai Hope (51) and his older brother Kyle Hope (46), along with Holder with 34, all got started but failed to carry on.

Holder said the innings had been hurt by the inability of the set players to push on for a big score.

“We weren’t able to keep our wickets in tact at crucial stages of the game and we lost wickets every time we seemed to be gathering momentum,” the Barbadian all-rounder pointed out.

Stylish right-hander Shai Hope hits out during his top score of 51 in the fifth ODI against India on Thursday. (Photo courtesy CWI Media)

“We can’t put it down to the pitch, it was just poor shot selection at the time. I felt a few of our batsmen got out with some big overs where we could have consolidated a little bit more and pushed the game a little deeper.”

He continued: “I’m obviously very disappointed [with my own innings]. My plans were to go as deep as possible. I thought the par score was 270 but at that stage where I was batting it was quite difficult to get to 270.

“I felt I went a little to early. I probably should have batted down another five overs and rotated the strike because I was scoring freely but it was an error on my part probably going a little too early.”

Despite the batting lapses in all four completed games in the series, Holder praised the bowlers for the valiant efforts, often times in pressure situations.

“I must say credit to the bowlers, I think they came in and tried. For the entire series they have been pulling us out of the hat most of the time so credit to them,” he said.

“If you check our bowling line up they are still relatively inexperienced and the way the guys bowled, they showed a lot of maturity.”

West Indies are scheduled to play England in their next one-day series from September 19-29.