• England’s captain says lessons must be learned from series loss
• ‘To find ourselves out of it with a game to go is hard to take‘
As Jason Holder led his victorious West Indies players on a lap of honour around the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, an ashen-faced Joe Root blamed England’s series defeat on the failure of his batsmen to copy the home side.
Speaking after going 2-0 down with one to play in St Lucia, the England captain rejected suggestions his batsmen had gone too hard at the ball as they collapsed to 132 all out on a surface that for three days presented a significant challenge. But in the face of a West Indies first-innings total of 306 built on obdurate batting from Kraigg Brathwaite (49 from 156 balls) and Darren Bravo (50 from 216), the nature of some English dismissals nevertheless grated.
Written by Ali Martin in Antigua
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/feb/02/joe-root-england-west-indies-outplayed-outperformed under the title “Joe Root: ‘We came here to win but we have been outplayed, outperformed’”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
