with what is currently happening to the South African innings may cause some of us to have a rethink of our criticism of him. If we had lost a few early wickets in a big game would we have had the temperament in a big game to maximise our run rate without losing a flood of wickets.

I would still fault him for trying too hard to slog the ball rather than play his natural game....but again i fault the sudden change of opening partner for that. Still, the wicketless powerplay was a good platform to build from

Despite Hope slow start, the Hetmyer decision pretty much seemed to have decided things

@Logic

it's a reasonable point, but bottom line is our bowling an even if we had scored 230+ i still would not have been confident we would have been able to defend it ...of all the teams in the semis our bowling attack is by far the worse...which is in comparison to our batting which i think is the strongest!!

Hope and a few other batsmen have that minds set of starting slowly and then explode, the issue with that approach is, when he fails it puts enormous pressure on the team. Power play is not a period to rotate strike.

Actually he probably missed 10 runs at the most> But you would trade for a a lack of collapse. Also you got a surprising contribution from Chase. So it all evened out. It was overblown. like it is easy to score 220 against India on any ground.

If you doubt that in a 120 ball innings, fielding restrictions game 7-8 men cannot keep the scoring tempo at average 10 rpo 8/10 times maybe you shouldn't play.

Look Marco Jansen ..

@Logic

@CCW

Hope's innings was a bad innings. Hope himself knows this. There is no way an opener facing 30 odd balls should be scoring at less than a run a ball in a t20 match muchless a t20I match.

That wicket was a 200 wicket, 200 was par. Even if Shai scored at par he should have gotten 55 runs off those 33 balls he faced rather than 32. He left 23 runs on the board by the way he batted. This 23 was arrived by straight math, in reality WI left more runs on the board as if he had scored quicker the Indian bowlers would have been under more pressure and run scoring would have been easier.

WI bat deep and bowling is weaker so our approach should be to maximize our batting and to score above the par score. It is pointless to have so many wickets in hand at the end and end up with a below par score.

WI have been so fearful of batting collapses that they plan to start off slow in the powerplay and then at the back end of the innings they expect the finishes to go all out and make up for the slow start. They have done this in both odd and t20. This is not an approach that will make you a champion team.

Hetty's dismissal was unfortunate but so it goes sometimes.

I have included this article from cricinfo. Hope himself knows that his innings was bad, there should be no one defending 32 off 33 balls as anything other than a bad innings on a 200 run track.

https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/t20-world-cup-2026-shai-hope-takes-blame-for-west-indies-exit-in-india-defeat-1526588

New Zealand’s reply to SA score today in context

@camos

If he started slowly it would be okay, cause you would expect him to pickup the pace. He was struggling, big difference. Pressure?

@Logic

Hope and Hetty did their best to takes us to the finish-line, with that being said - i will refrain from any negative narrative on both of them..