'Getting bowled out for 55 is not acceptable': Kieron Pollard rues lack of application after crushing loss to England

West Indies skipper Kieron Pollard said he is not proud of the team’s abysmal performance against England in the 20-20 World Cup. Sent into bat by skipper Eoin Morgan at the Dubai International Stadium, West Indies were bundled out for just 55 in 14.2 overs. None of the batters barring Chris Gayle could reach double figures as wickets kept tumbling like a pack of cards.

In the past too, the Pollard-led side have had such horrendous collapses due to their naturally aggressive gameplay. Pollard spoke during the post-match conference and said that getting shot down for 55 is unacceptable. He also said the team will revisit their performance and see what went wrong for them, adding that they will come back stronger in the next game.

"55-odd for an international team is unacceptable". "Again as I said, it's not something that we are proud of as a team. We got out. But I'm not going to go into what it is or how it is. Obviously, just plain to see, 55-odd for the international team I think is unacceptable and we accept that. So we revisit and hopefully, we come back stronger. At the end of it, once we have life, we have the opportunity to do things better. A lot of different things are happening around, where people don't have opportunities to put things right. For us, we have an opportunity to, so we take a couple (of) days… and we see how it goes in a couple days' time.”

Pollard was also asked if the pitch had any demons whatsoever, to which he denied saying the batters failed to apply themselves on the wicket.

"I think it was a good wicket to bat on. The ball was coming on to the bat decently (but) it had something there (for the bowlers). But there were no demons in it. Again, (as) I said, a good batting display, a good batting track, sorry, but not a great batting display," he added.

West Indies are the most successful team of the tournament, having won the showpiece event twice, but their start to the 2021 edition has been very poor. The team has lost three consecutive games, including the two warm-up matches. The team next play South Africa on October 26.