Windies have to work harder, says skipper

BASSETERRE, St Kitts (CMC):

Captain Jason Holder on Saturday conceded West Indies still had much work to do in order to ready themselves for next year's ICC World Cup in England, after they slumped to a 2-1 series defeat to Bangladesh.

In the decisive third one-day international at Warner Park, West Indies were undone by Tamim Iqbal's second hundred of the series (103) as Bangladesh piled up their highest-ever score against the hosts - 301 for six off their allotted 50 overs.

West Indies then came up short by 18 runs as not for the first time, they found acceleration difficult in the middle overs, and the innings stalled. This left them requiring 109 from the last 10 overs which proved a mountain too high to climb.

"This is something we have to play special attention to [because] the way world cricket is, you have to get 300 runs as a par score and I just believe we should've made the runs ...," Holder lamented afterwards.

He added: "We lost momentum in the middle. Credit to Chris (Gayle), he played an outstanding innings and credit to Rovman (Powell) there at the very end."

Veteran Gayle was superb at the top of the order, stroking 73 from 66 balls with six fours and five sixes. He put on 53 for the first wicket with Evin Lewis (12) and 52 for the second wicket with Shai Hope, who made 64.

However, once Gayle departed in the 22nd over, the innings slowed to a crawl as Hope consumed 94 deliveries in his knock, and Powell's late flourish - an unbeaten 74 off 41 balls - came a little too late to save the Windies.

The loss was the 12th for the Windies in 17 ODIs inside the last 12 months and left them without a series win in four years.