NORTH SOUND, Antigua, CMC – Strokemaker Shai Hope said he had been ready for the opportunity to feature in the Twenty20 World Cup despite being left out of West Indies’ first three games in the group stage.
The elegant right-hander sparkled on Friday night with a scintillating unbeaten 82 as the Caribbean side crushed the United States by nine wickets to post their first win of the Super Eight, second stage.
Hope debuted in the tournament against Afghanistan in St Lucia last week, making 25 from 17 balls batting at number before being dropped for the West Indies’ opening Super Eight game against England, which they lost by eight wickets.
With opener Brandon King ruled out of the tournament with an injury sustained against England, Hope was again drafted into the final XI at the top of the order.
“[You] just have to stay ready in a tournament like this. There’s a reason why we have 15 players,” Hope told reporters.
“All of them need to be ready whenever the time comes. And again, there are different conditions that we have to face.
“We’ve got St. Lucia, which is one of the better surfaces, then we got Guyana, which tends to turn and play a little bit lower, so again, horses for courses.
“You have to ensure that you’re ready to play each situation and that we have players to play in certain conditions as well.”
He continued: “So again, everyone is ready to play. We have an entire squad of players. It’s not just 11 guys in the team.
“I understand why I’m not playing, but everyone in the 15 will love to be up there in the 11. we understand the reason for the 11 going out there on a particular day, but we’re all ready to play.”
Hope looked superb, crunching four fours and eight sixes in a stunning 39-ball knock to post his third half-century in 30 T20 Internationals.
Driven by his fireworks, West Indies comfortably chased down their target of 128 off just 10.5 overs to boost their net run rate to 1.81 – the highest in Group 2 led by unbeaten South Africa.
“Whatever the team requires, that’s me,” Hope said.
“Unfortunately, King had to leave us – hopefully, he recovers quickly – but I had to go at the top this time around, and the aim was just to get off to a good start.
“You see the importance of finishing the game early as well. I had a good time in the middle, [it was a] good surface, and I enjoyed batting tonight.”
He added: “We understood the importance of finishing the game quickly but didn’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves.
“We just played the power-play. The aim was to play the power-play as usual as possible, put away the foul balls, put the guys under pressure, and start the over [firmly] stuff like that.
“Then we assessed after the power play and decided to finish by a certain stage. So that’s what came out of the plans and the meetings.”
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