"Everyone was hurt" - Nicholas Pooran reflects on disappointing 2022 T20 World Cup as West Indies eye 3rd title
West Indies keeper-batter Nicholas Pooran has admitted that their humiliating first-round exit in the T20 World Cup 2022 was painful for everyone involved. With the T20 World Cup 2024 just around the corner, set to be co-hosted by the Caribbean, the southpaw believes they are now in a good position to win the tournament.
Clubbed in Group B with Scotland, Ireland, and Zimbabwe in 2022, the West Indies beat only Zimbabwe, thereby failing to make it to the Super 12 stage. The following year saw them fail to qualify for the 2023 World Cup as well after a poor performance in the Qualifiers.
Speaking to ESPN Cricinfo, Pooran reflected on how the 2022 T20 World Cup resulted in his captaincy resignation, but now sees an opportunity to redeem themselves, given much of the team's exposure to franchise cricket.
"When we played in Australia where we didn't qualify, everyone was hurt. I resigned [from] captaincy after that as well. Everyone was hurt. But we are no longer that group of guys. We all know what's at stake here. We all know that we have an opportunity to obviously redeem ourselves, make our cricket fans in the Caribbean and our cricket fans all over the world proud of us [and] happy," Pooran said.
He added:
"This time around we are much better players as well. Most of our guys that play franchise cricket, they understand what is needed to be a professional as well."
West Indies head into the World Cup following a 3-0 drubbing of South Africa in a T20I series. Their only warm-up match saw the co-hosts hammer 257 against Australia to win by 35 runs.
"Everybody wants to get that special feeling we had when we won those 2 T20 World Cups" - Nicholas Pooran
In the same interview, the Trinidadian reflected on how well the West Indies played against the Proteas despite a few key players missing. Pooran went on to urge the players not to leave anything on the field whatever the result.
"If you just look at the series we played against South Africa, a few guys were missing, but we were able to win that series 3-nil. You saw the performances, you saw that guys are fighting and that's really important,” he said. “We may win, we may not win, but what's more important for me, as a senior player as well, is that we need to give it 100% on and off the field. Coming back in here after two years, everybody wants to get that special feeling we had when we won those two T20 World Cups."
West Indies will open their campaign against Papua New Guinea on June 2 in Guyana.