WI vs AUS | 'We either started well and finished poorly or otherwise', Hope criticises batting unit after whitewash

The West Indies were put into bat in all five games of the series and failed to defend the total even once against a powerful-looking Australian side led by Mitchell Marsh. Though Hope had a good outing with the bat, scoring 185 runs at an average of 46.25, the other batters failed to convert their starts into big innings, which also resulted in the team falling 10-15 runs short of a total they were expected to score. The last game was a similar story for them, where they looked good to score a 200-plus total, but faltered to a score of 173 in the end. 

“I just didn't think we put together a proper batting display. We either started well and finished poorly or the other way around. When you're playing against quality opposition like Australia, you've got to put things together for a more complete game. As a batting group, we didn't really give ourselves the best chance to put a big score on the board consistently. And that's probably where we fell short… We've always been one step behind the eight ball. I think here in the Caribbean, we all know the stats show chasing is always the better thing to do. Whether it's the dew factor or the wind factor, you always have that scoreboard in front of you, so you have an idea of how to go about the chase. But it's something that I can't control. Unfortunately, I didn't win any … It's just one of those things for us,” Hope said during the post-match presentation.

“We understood the struggles of bowling spin here on this ground and surface. But is a quality bowler and we just backed him to come and do the job, and he did exceptionally well for that four-over spell. Just unfortunate that, again, we didn't have as many runs on the board as we would have liked. I still must commend the guys for the effort that they showed in the back end to give ourselves a chance to win the game. But once you don't have that many runs on the board, then you got to hope everything goes perfectly in the field. It just didn't happen for us,” Hope added.