West Indies captain Rovman Powell rues poor batting after their defeat against South Africa in the Super Eight of the ICC T20 World Cup 2024.

West Indies lost to South Africa by 3 wickets on Monday (June 24) at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua. Tabraiz Shamsi bowled another superb spell, where he picked up 3 wickets to restrict West Indies to a paltry 135 runs. In reply, South Africa struggled but eventually chased down the target to reach the semifinal.

West Indies started very poorly in the innings but Kyle Mayers and Roston Chase made 81-run partnership for the third wicket to give West Indies a good platform to make a fighting total. But they failed massively after that in the middle as they scored just 49 runs in the last 8 overs for 5 wickets.

“Credit has to be given to the boys, they fought till the very end. As a batting group, this is a performance you'd want to forget. We did not bat well in the middle. It was not an easy wicket, especially to get started. In the middle overs, we lost wickets in clusters. That broke the back of our batting team. It was a commendable bowling effort. We said we wanted to give it our all. They believed even if it was only 135,” Powell said.

Powell expresses satisfaction that West Indies cricket has now come into a shape after a disastrous period where they failed to qualify for the ODI World Cup, T20 World Cup in the last two years. “When you look on a large scale, we have not won the World Cup or in the semi-final, but if you look at the cricket we have played in the last 15 months, to go from No.9 to No.3 in the rankings, it is commendable. There is a lot of buzz in the Caribbean around West Indian cricket, and now is where the work starts. Continue to work together as a group and make the Caribbean people proud,” Powell added.

Powell also thanks the supporters for being around them throughout the whole tournament. “They have been fantastic. Every venue we have played and all the social media likes and stuff they have given us, we really appreciate that as a team. Good to see some buzz is back and for long, it had died down. Now, people are rallying around the players. When we hear the anthem, as players, we feel something and that is heading in the right direction. Thanks to the people of Antigua for coming out (tonight). Not just people in Antigua but to everyone in the Caribbean, thanks for coming out,” Powell concluded.