BAS­SETERRE, St Kitts – West In­dies skip­per Shai Hope ex­pressed im­mense sat­is­fac­tion with his team’s dom­i­nant 3-0 ODI se­ries vic­to­ry over Bangladesh, high­light­ing the team’s growth, con­sis­ten­cy, and col­lec­tive ef­fort in se­cur­ing the clean sweep.

It was all smiles for the team cap­tain when he spoke to re­porters, fol­low­ing the team’s his­toric vic­to­ry in the third ODI here on Thurs­day. When asked about the sig­nif­i­cance of win­ning the se­ries 3-0, Hope’s pride was ev­i­dent.

“Any­time you start a se­ries and see a group of guys will­ing to play crick­et, you can’t ask for bet­ter re­sults than that. We’ve been plan­ning well, and play­ing good crick­et, and it’s just great to see that we can get over the line and sweep the se­ries.”

The se­ries saw strong per­for­mances from mul­ti­ple play­ers, with Sher­fane Ruther­ford and Amir Jan­goo get­ting cen­turies and Jay­den Seales lead­ing the wick­et-tak­ing col­umn with five scalps. This is some­thing Hope praised as cru­cial to their suc­cess.

“Every­body stepped up for the se­ries and con­tributed to the over­all vic­to­ry. What’s pleas­ing for me as a leader is to see every­one putting their hands up in dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions. There’s not one par­tic­u­lar guy do­ing the bulk of the work every sin­gle time.”

Re­flect­ing on the team’s pro­gres­sion, Hope em­pha­sized how the side has worked to avoid the pit­falls of in­con­sis­ten­cy that have plagued them in the past.

“The pro­gres­sion is clear. Be­fore, we would take one step for­ward and then two steps back, es­pe­cial­ly when we start­ed a se­ries well. We would find our­selves play­ing pret­ty mediocre crick­et in the back end. But now, we’re keep­ing our foot down, es­pe­cial­ly when we are up.”

Hope point­ed to the lessons learned from the Eng­land se­ries ear­li­er this year. “Af­ter that se­ries, when we let them back in, I want­ed to chal­lenge the boys this time. When we have teams in strong po­si­tions, es­pe­cial­ly at home, we’ve got to make sure we fin­ish the se­ries. Win­ning more three nils is the goal.”

The skip­per al­so ac­knowl­edged the in­creas­ing com­pe­ti­tion among the bat­ting line­up and the im­por­tance of play­ers mak­ing the most of their op­por­tu­ni­ties.

“It’s great to see what the guys are ca­pa­ble of at this lev­el. The more op­por­tu­ni­ties they get, the bet­ter it is for us. Es­pe­cial­ly now when we’re do­ing well, it’s even bet­ter. I’m hap­py to see the guys grab­bing their chances with both hands.”

How­ev­er, Hope not­ed that there still is a need to bol­ster the team’s bowl­ing op­tions. “I think we need to find more spin op­tions, es­pe­cial­ly wrist spin. But we’re go­ing to get there, one step at a time. The pro­gres­sion is what mat­ters.”

CMC l