Mumbai: West Indies captain Shai Hope stated the performance of Matthew Forde showed the tremendous depth that his team possessed at the ICC Men's T20 World Cup.
Hope was talking to reporters at the post-match media briefing and dwelt upon the roles played by the likes of Forde in offering balance to the team.
"Firstly, that goes to show how strong our squad is, when you select anyone in the team, you have someone who can fill a hole, I wouldn't necessarily call it a hole, but every single person in the squad has something that they can bring to contribute to team's win."
Hope was elated with Forde's efforts and lavished praise on him.
"On Matthew, he's been incredible for us in the ball pit in the last few series, all the way from New Zealand when he came out from that injury, so it's great to have him back. He's been bowling really well, and then you can see what he can do in the back end with the bat as well, so he's a very good all-round player and someone that could be a very perfect player," he added.
When queried about Windies feeling a sense of redemption after beating Nepal, who had beaten them in the T20I series 2-1 last September, Hope brushed it aside and felt it was important to stay in the present.
"Well that's in the past, like I said before, it's history, you know we've got to stay in the present. We've got to ensure we play our best cricket because we've seen Nepal as a very good team regardless of what you're playing against, where they're playing, so we needed to bring our A game once again today and like I said, that was in the past, they played good cricket then, but today we needed to get over the line to ensure our place in the Super Eights."
The WI skipper felt it was a great feeling to almost assure themselves of a place in the Super Eights.
"That's a great feeling, that's what we set out to do from the jump, and we've got our new player to come here, that was our first step. We all want to lift the trophy but there's a process to get there, so play our best cricket, hopefully we can continue to peak and keep a strong unit in all departments, and when the time comes, we can always seize those moments and be on top," he added.
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When asked about West Indies' chances of playing Nepal again and the outcomes there, Hope was non-committal.
"I can't speak on the future now, I'm not a powerful teller, but any opportunity we get to play against strong teams, regardless of whether they're an associate nation or a full member nation, we all see how strong each team is in world cricket these days, some of these so-called associate nations, they play a lot of world cricket, and they've got a lot of experience in the field as well, so I don't think that the full member team should be neglecting their true skills and performance, but it's great to see them playing well, again, still learnings for them," Hope explained.
