WI hoping to bounce back in third T20 – Shepherd

West Indies all-rounder Romario Shepherd is hoping the men in maroon will be able to bounce back in the third T20 International against New Zealand. Shepherd was again among the runs, scoring 34 from 16 balls, including four sixes and one four. The Guyanese said he is hopeful that the batsmen can start the innings better and that the power hitters can flourish.
“Sometimes the close game can hurt you. All in all, it is what it is supposed to be. Hopefully, we can pull off the win in the next game. It was a better wicket than the first game. We know what we are capable of in the back end (power hitting), but we wanted a better start. In the future, we have to set up the game a bit better,” Shepherd said.
Meanwhile, Captain Shai Hope credited the Black Cap batters while reflecting on what went wrong for the West Indies in the three-run defeat. “Well, too close; we didn’t cross it this time. Credit must be given to Chapman for the way he cleared those boundaries. He kind of took the game away from us. We didn’t really finish as well as we wanted to with the ball. With the bat, maybe there are a few areas where we could do a bit better, especially at the top there, myself included.”
Hope added, “But great fight there from Rovvie, Sheppy, and Matthew Ford to give us a good chance of winning that game. We just felt as though if we got a couple of sixes in there, we were bringing the equation a lot lower. Especially on a ground like this, you don’t think it is ever over, particularly with the shorter boundaries.”
“The power that we possess as well in the bottom line-up is very strong. We never feel as though we’ve done enough. So, there’s always positive energy coming through the rest of the room. It’s just unfortunate we didn’t cross it this time today. [on bowling Akeal for just one over] The way Fordy was going, he always said he was up in the zone with Devon at the start.”
“We wanted him to utilise that new ball there in that situation. He just felt he bowled really well. It was tough to take him off. It’s one of those things; you’ve just got to gamble and hope that it pays off for you and get it in. And then Akeal, given how the two lefties were going, I think it was pretty difficult to bring him in at that situation. So, it was a tough one there. But we were just trying to play the situation and match up as best as we could. That’s the way I went about it today,” the West Indies captain said at the post-match.
The third T20 bowls off at 20:15h local time on Saturday, November 8.