West Indies got off to a bad start as they suffered a heavy defeat against Australia in the first encounter of their five-match One-Day International series at the WACA Ground.
The Windies were bowled out for 70 on a lively pitch. Left-arm seamer Mitchell Starc took 5-20 to earn the Man-of-the-Match award. Australia then raced to victory by 9 wickets with Glenn Maxwell making an unbeaten half-century. For the Windies, debutant Jason Holder taking the only wicket to fall. The 6-foot-8-inch seamer was impressive in his 4.2 overs.
West Indies captain Darren Sammy was disappointment with the result and promised that the team will have a thorough analysis of where they went wrong and look to get it right when the two sides clash again on Sunday in the second ODI at the same venue,
“Australia hit us hard so we know we have to hit back hard in the next game. This is not the first time they hit us hard in the first match – I remember back home last year we got rolled over in the first game of the ODI series, but we came back with a fight and levelled that series and the series went down to the wire,” Sammy said.
“Also in the T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka we lost the first match to Australia, but we fought back and went on to win that tournament, so we know we have the ability to bounce back and that is what I will tell the boys.”
Sammy added: “I am disappointed. We are all disappointed. This is not the kind of start we had in mind. It’s going to be hard to wipe what happened out of the memory, but we’ve had great games against them and we’ll think about the positives. We need to dust ourselves off and believe we can be successful against them. We see this as a one-off game and will back ourselves to come back strongly.”
Sammy is a fan of Holder, who has demonstrated steady progress with both bat and ball since he enrolled in the Sagicor West Indies High Performance Centre in 2010. The 21-year-old, who has played for Barbados and Combined Campuses and Colleges in regional cricket, found the surface at the WACA to his liking and was able to extract bounce and movement.
“He’s a good young man and a quick learner. He made the adjustment early on in his spell and looked good out there. He has been bowling well in the Caribbean T20 back home and he continued that here. Even when Maxwell was coming hard at him, he kept his cool and held his nerve,” Sammy said.
West Indies will have a training session on Saturday morning as they prepare for the second One-Day International on Sunday. First ball is 11:20 am (11:20 pm Saturday Eastern Caribbean Time/10:20 pm Jamaica Time).
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