Holder blames Windies’ death bowling for loss

Sydney, Feb 27: West Indies captain Jason Holder blamed their pathetic death bowling and dropped chances as they slumped to a 257-run defeat in their World Cup Pool B encounter against South Africa at the Sydney Cricket Ground (SCG) here Friday.

“We dropped chances and chasing 400 was always tough. But had we held on to some of those chances, we could have had 350 to chase and could have had a chance. Our death bowling needs to be looked at,” said Holder at the post-match presentation ceremony.

South Africa posted a mammoth 408/5 with an unbeaten knock of 162 coming from 66 balls from skipper AB De Villiers. In reply, the West Indies were bowled out for 151 in 33.1 overs.

"We did pretty well early on, keeping the run-rate down, but AB took the game away from us. If you take away his innings, it looked a totally different score,” the pace bowler said, who leaked 104 runs from his 10 overs.

The 23-year-old added that they will be taking positives out of the game and are looking forward to face defending champions India at Perth March 6.

“Just need to take the positives from today and go on to India. Need to put it behind us, but need to correct the errors moving forward. Still up for the quarter-finals. Need to play good cricket," he said.