Windies skipper Jason Holder was left to rue some rash shot-making from his batsmen as his side fell to a 15-run defeat against defending champions Australia in the 2019 ICC World Cup.
The Caribbean side had Australia on the ropes early on with the ball at 38-4 but the five-time champions recovered through half-centuries from Nathan Coulter-Nile and Steve Smith to ultimately post 288.
In response, Windies were well in the game with half-centuries from Holder himself and Shai Hope but some poor shot-making at the death from batsmen such as Andre Russell and Carlos Brathwaite saw them ultimately fade away in the chase.
“Obviously disappointed. I thought we were well in the game there,” a dejected Holder said after the game.
“Just a few irresponsible shots when we probably just needed to tap it around a little bit more. Having said that, I still think there’s lots of positives to take out of this game.
“If we came here at the start of the day and limited Australia to 280, we’d have taken that. The batters need to take the responsibility and knock it off. It’s still early days. We have to be more consistent. When we have teams down, we have to keep them down.”
Coulter-Nile rescued Australia with a 60-ball 92.
His Australia counterpart Aaron Finch was delighted with the fighting spirit his side showed despite being in precarious positions at several points in the game.
“We just kept hanging in there,” said Finch.
“From 4 for 30-odd to be able to fight back, that partnership between Alex Carey and Steve Smith to get us a little deeper and then Nathan Coulter-Nile to play the way he did was exceptional.
“It’s not ideal for the top order to miss out and put us in that position but even with the ball we hung in there and I’m really proud of the boys today.”
It was the second win in as many for the Aussies in the 2019 World Cup and it stretched their winning run in ODIs to 10 matches. For Windies, it was the first loss after the Caribbean side had earlier thrashed Pakistan in their campaign opener.
