T20 World Cup | You are not going to get me throw my players under the bus, says Pollard as West Indies lose again

10/26/2021

After losing their second match of the T20I World Cup 2021 against South Africa by 8 wickets on Tuesday, Kieron Pollard defended his players and said they tried their best and he is not going to 'throw them under the bus'. Batting first, West Indies managed 143 for the loss of 8 wickets in 20 overs.

After being put in to bat first, West Indies openers Lendl Simmons and Evin Lewis stitched together 73 runs off 63 balls before the latter departed for a 35-ball 56. Nicholas Pooran walked in next but could manage only two runs as Keshav Maharaj got his second wicket of the match.

Simmons's (16 off 35) struggling innings came to an end next as the Caribbean side was left reeling at 89 for 3 in 13.2 overs. With Chris Gayle (12 off 12) and Andre Russell (5 off 4), Shimron Hetmyer (1 off 2), and Dwayne Bravo (8 off 5) failing, West Indies ended their innings at 143/8 in 8 overs. Pollard (26 off 20) was the second-highest run-scorer for his side.

Despite the absence of Quinton de Kock, who opted out of the match due to "personal reasons", South Africa made light work of the chase, winning the match with 8 wickets and 16 balls remaining.

Reeza Hendrics (39 0ff 30), Rassie Van Der Dussen (43* off 51) and Aiden Markram (51* off 26) were solid in the run chase.

While defending the slow batting of Simmons, Pollard pointed out that Dussen's knock was also slow. He asserted that it was important for West Indies to win their first match before thinking about the Net Run Rate (NRR).

"Obviously just a matter that we haven't scored enough runs. It's disappointing today. I thought the first 6 overs, the end result of 43 without loss we would have taken that. We wanted to keep that momentum going but we lost a couple of wickets. It was a kind of stop start position. [On Simmons] These things happen, yes he got stuck.

"After 6 overs he was there and we wanted to bat a couple more overs without losing wickets. Having said that you are not going to get me here throwing my teammates under the bus. They're trying. At the end of the day you saw Rassie came out and played the same for them. It was a disappointing total batting effort not getting 160 plus. Before we think about the net run-rate we've got to win first," Pollard said after the match.

West Indies next face Bangladesh on Friday.