da esport bet： An increasingly despondent West Indies captain Carl Hooper admitted to beingdisturbed by his sides continued poor performance in Sri Lanka, as theyslipped to a four-wicket defeat against Zimbabwe in the second game of theLG Abans triangular series
Charlie Austin09-Dec-2001An increasingly despondent West Indies captain Carl Hooper admitted to beingdisturbed by his sides continued poor performance in Sri Lanka, as theyslipped to a four-wicket defeat against Zimbabwe in the second game of theLG Abans triangular series on Sunday.West Indies were bowled out for just 173 on a decent pitch at the SinhaleseSports Club, which they then followed with a jaded display in the field.”We just don’t seem to have got ourselves together after the Test series,”said Hooper. “We didn’t look sharp batting at all. We looked half asleep.””We lost it in the batting department,” he said. “Between 220-240 would havemade it a good game and against Zimbabwe we expected to score 250.”Asked as the reason for the team’s poor run, he said: “I don’t know, it’sbecoming disturbing. We seem to be putting our tails are between our legsand running for cover. I have racked my head but what do you do? Do youchange the batting order or pick different players?”The first thing to address is whether this is the best team here and onbalance I think it is. We are just not playing as a team and puttingtogether consistently good performances.”We have got to much better than this. The World Cup is only a year or soaway now. The emphasis must be playing well as a team.West Indies are now under pressure for qualification for the final and takeon the hosts on Tuesday. Hooper added: “Lets hope we are saving our bestperformance for the Sri Lankans.”Zimbabwean captain Stuart Carlisle, man of the match after his 47, was,however, elated to have comeback so well after Saturdays humiliatingnine-wicket defeat by Sri Lanka.”Its incredible this game: from the lowest of lows we are back on a high,”he said. “The guys showed a lot of character.”We were blessed with an early run out and then we put some early pressureon and keep that going for the full 50 overs No complaints with the fieldingtoday either. A much better effort, with hardly any fumbles.But Carlisle admitted to a few nervous moments as Zimbabwe suffered a minimiddle order collapse.”We were sweating up there in the dressing room and I don’t why we made itso hard for ourselves,” he said. It started with a bad shot from me and thenCraig Wishart, Douglas Marillier and Tatenda Taibu all played terribleshots. There is no doubt that we will be talking about that quiteaggressively tomorrow.”But a win is a win and, after our 16 match run of losses before theBangladesh series, its good to show some of the young guys that we can beatthe better sides.”