NORTH SOUND, An­tigua – Cap­tain Shai Hope has la­belled Ro­mario Shep­herd an “im­pact play­er” fol­low­ing the all-rounder’s cameo in West In­dies’ pul­sat­ing four-wick­et win over Eng­land in the open­ing One-Day In­ter­na­tion­al on Sun­day.

The broad-shoul­dered Shep­herd smashed a 28-ball 48 in pres­sure cir­cum­stances as the home side chased down a record 326 at the Vi­vian Richards Crick­et Sta­di­um to take a 1-0 lead in the three-match se­ries.

“He’s an im­pact play­er. He’s one of those guys that you can de­pend on,” Hope said fol­low­ing the con­test.

“It’s nice to see he’s con­sis­tent­ly do­ing it and I’m sure that if he con­tin­ues like this, he’s go­ing to be a great all-rounder for West In­dies and in world crick­et.

“So hope­ful­ly he can con­tin­ue and all of the guys start chip­ping in and gain­ing more con­fi­dence and we can get a lot more wins as a team.”

Strid­ing to the crease with West In­dies in a spot of both­er at 213 for five in the 39th over and fac­ing a re­quired run rate of over ten, Shep­herd launched a stun­ning counter-at­tack with four fours and three six­es, which changed the com­plex­ion of the game.

Cru­cial­ly, he put on 89 for the sixth wick­et with Hope, who carved out a sub­lime un­beat­en 109 from 83 balls.

By the time he was lbw to seam­er Gus Atkin­son at the start of the 48th over, West In­dies were with­in touch­ing dis­tance of vic­to­ry.

“He was amaz­ing. He’s al­ways amaz­ing and he’s con­tin­u­ing to show his worth at this lev­el,” Hope said.

The 29-year-old Shep­herd, who de­scribed the in­nings as “one of his best in­nings so far” said West In­dies were al­ways con­fi­dent they could over­haul their tar­get.

“We thought we pulled back the game a lot be­cause when you looked at the start [they got], they were look­ing up 400,” ex­plained Shep­herd.

“So when we got [them] to 326, in the meet­ing [at the half-way] stage, the coach (Dar­ren Sam­my) said ‘we’re go­ing to get this’ be­cause it’s a good bat­ting wick­et and we have some good bats­men.”

He added: “I think this bunch of guys is a sol­id bunch of guys and the first thing is to be con­sis­tent. We need to cap­i­talise on these kinds of mo­ments.

“It’s the first win on the board in this three-match se­ries. We have to first­ly go now, try to re­peat what we did this game in­to the next game and the oth­er game.”

West In­dies face Eng­land in the sec­ond ODI on Wednes­day.

CMC