Jason Holder proud of West Indies team's effort in reaching the final

West Indies beat South Africa at the Barbados on June 24 to qualify for the final of the tri-series against the world champions Australia. Jason Holder is proud that the No.8 ranked ODI side has reached the final thrashing the No.3 out of the tournament and to take on the No.1 in the final.

“I’m extremely proud,” Holder said. “A lot of the guys have been struggling with some niggles and it’s just good to see the guys fight through it. We know the importance of this series and the importance of moving up the rankings. We’ve been criticised in the past for being stuck at No.7 and No.8. It’s important we keep making strides forward.”

He said that it is always important to have a core team going forward. “All I can urge is that the guys stay together. If we can keep this core group of players together, maybe make one or two changes or additions as we go abroad on tours, but I think it’s important for West Indies cricket that we keep a core group of players together and move forward with these guys, identify who we want to take forward and hopefully get the backing of everybody around us and keep these guys together.”

The 24-year old also said that he is expecting a much better batting performance from the top-order in the finals, given they were at 21 for 4 against South Africa on Friday and 31 for 3 against Australia three days earlier.

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However, they earned some praise from the Australian skipper Steve Smith. “I thought the West Indies scrapped really well,” Smith said. “We had them 3 for 30 in our game and they managed to get 280, and then yesterday 4 for 20 and they got 280. They scrapped incredibly well to get that score and it’s always going to be tough to chase.”

“The bowlers did the job again as well. [Shannon] Gabriel was very good, he started well, he bowled good pace consistently and put the batters under pressure and took early wickets. It looked like a pretty polished performance by the West Indies,” he added.

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Smith feels that the best is yet to come from Australians in the series and will look at having a polished win in the finals. “We have another final and I think Australians really step up in finals,” Smith said. “I think we haven’t played our best cricket so far throughout this series. Having said that, all you want to do is make it to the final and from there you want to be playing your best cricket. We haven’t had a polished performance yet, so it’d be nice to have that tomorrow.”

When asked about Marlon Samuels who was been in good nick, and after his 125 against Australia on Friday, he had said that Australia’s verbal approach towards him inspired him to stay in the middle as long as possible.

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“He’s obviously been in pretty good nick this series, particularly against us scoring a 90 and a hundred,” Smith said. “We’re going to have to get him out early if we want to have success tomorrow. Hopefully, we can just let our actions do the talking,” Holder concluded on a positive note.