Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], February 26 (ANI): Following a thumping nine-wicket defeat against South Africa, the West Indies skipper Shai Hope stressed that 'everything is not going to come easy' for his side as they eye a semi-final spot from Group 1 in the ongoing ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2026.

During the post-match presentation, West Indies captain Shai Hope reacted to the prospects of a quarterfinal at Kolkata.

He said, 'Everything is not going to come easy. We've got to find ways to overcome our challenges. And the way we've been playing cricket, yes, we've got to put a loss. Sometimes it's good to have a loss earlier in the campaign, but now we see the importance of this next game, and it's important for us to make sure we hit our straps well. And we've got to use it as a final as well, our first final and hopefully two more after that.'

Reacting to the defeat, Hope said, 'The way T20 cricket goes sometimes, you get a couple of wickets ourselves in the power play, you never know, things could have changed, but you must give credit where it's due, and I think Jason and Sheppi played a really good innings to give ourselves a chance.'

Hope admitted that his side was 40-50 runs short while batting first, and lost many wickets in the powerplay.

'It was very important to get a big score on the board, and losing so many wickets in the powerplay will always set us back. I just felt it was a very good surface, maybe 40-50 runs short in the end, but yeah, wickets in the powerplay, so many wickets in the powerplay, that's going to put us back as a batting team, he added.

Speaking on the talent on his side, he said, 'We have all the right people in our arsenal to make sure that we can play whatever conditions we're faced with. Again, you can have things in your favour as a bowling unit, but if you're not executing, then you're still going to give the batters their opportunities to score. It was one of those days where we didn't get enough runs on the board, and then it was a lot harder for the bowlers to really pull things back.'

Coming to the match, South Africa won the toss and elected to field first. Lungi Ngidi (3/30 in four overs) and Rabada (2/22 in four overs) stunned the Windies batting in the first half, sinking them to 83/7. However, an 89-run entertaining counter-attacking stand between Romario Shepherd (52* in 37 balls, with three fours and four sixes) and Jason Holder (49 in 31 balls, with three fours and three sixes) took WI to 176/8 in 20 overs, with Marco Jansen's four-over spell of 50 runs being a big negative for the Proteas.

In the run-chase, Markram (82* in 46 balls, with seven fours and four sixes) and Quinton de Kock (47 in 24 balls, with four boundaries and four sixes) had a quickfire 95-run partnership and later on, it was Rickelton (45* in 28 balls, with four boundaries and two sixes) who had a partnership with Markram to take SA to a nine-wicket win with nine wickets in hand. (ANI)