'We shouldn't feel disgraced, we lost but everyone put their hands up' - Kieron Pollard backs West Indies after clean sweep loss against India

West Indies might have suffered a 0-3 clean sweep in the T20I series against India, but the Men in Maroon skipper Kieron Pollard feels that his team shouldn’t feel disgraced as the contests were close and not what the scoreline indicates.

West Indies suffered a 17-run defeat in the final T20I against India on Sunday (February 20). After a scintillating knock of 65 runs by Suryakumar Yadav, which was complimented by Venkatesh Iyer’s 35 off 19 balls, India posted an above-par total of 184 runs.

In reply, West Indies continued to lose wickets at regular intervals, with wicketkeeper-batter Nicholas Pooran scoring a well made 61 off 47 balls. However, the visitors fell short by 17 runs in their chase. With that, Men in Blue completed a total whitewash of 6-0 including three ODIs as well.

I don’t think we should be disgraced by what has taken place, says skipper Pollard

Speaking in the post-match conference Pollard said, “Yes we lost 3-0 but the guys put their hands up and gave a good account of themselves. I don’t think we should be disgraced by what has taken place. We are not happy losing, let me put that on record. It’s not like that at all. We are trying to win cricket games. I thought it was a good series. We are a work in progress and will get some time to think about things.”

West Indies had their chance to level the series in the second T20I with both Pooran and Rovman Powell going berserk and stitching a 100-run partnership in the process. However, their plans were spoilt by death over specialist Bhuvneshwar Kumar bowling a tight penultimate over as the visitors fell short by eight runs.

West Indies did fair well in the T20I series with two of the top three run getters in the series were Pooran and Rovman Powell. The wicketkeeper-batter smashed three fifties on the trot to be the top-run getter of the series with 184 runs at an average of 61.33, while Powell scored at an average of 47.50.

In bowling department, Roston Chase ended up taking most wickets in the T20I series scalping six wickets at an average of 10.33. There were also some contributions from Jason Holder, Sheldon Cottrell and Alzarri Joseph but they could not take West Indies to wins.