Would like to remain Windies captain: Jason Holder

Wellington, March 21 (IANS) Newly-appointed West Indies skipper Jason Holder said that he would like to keep leading the Caribbean side despite losing the World Cup quarter-final to New Zealand at the Wellington Regional Stadium here on Saturday.

New Zealand beat West Indies by 143 runs to enter the semi-finals of the mega event where they will meet South Africa at the Eden Park in Auckland on Tuesday.

"Of course I will like to keep the job. As a youngster I always dreamt of leading West Indies and I am here doing it. I don’t think I have done too badly. I have a lot of confidence we can go upwards," Holder said at the post-match presentation ceremony.

Riding on Martin Guptill’s unbeaten 237 off 163 balls, New Zealand posted a mammoth 393/6 in 50 overs. But the West Indies were bundled out for 250 in 30.3 overs. Guptill made the highest individual score in World Cup history, going past Chris Gayle’s 215 against Zimbabwe earlier in the tournament.

“Guptill played brilliantly. We put him down early. A set batsman on that pitch is dangerous. We failed to bowl yorkers which did hurt us," the 23-year-old skipper said.

Being a young captain who was given the responsibility of captaining the Windies, Holder said that the journey has been enjoyable and he has learned a lot and is confident of a better show in the future.

“Before the event we didn’t have a good series against South Africa. This journey was enjoyable. I learned a lot from this experience. There was ups and down in the mega event. Not something I will shy away from,” the skipper said.

West Indies had won three matches and lost three in the group stages before going down to the Black Caps in the quarters. The all-rounder said they need to sit down and assess where they went wrong.

“It’s about learning as quickly as possible. We need to sit down and assess and find where we went wrong. We need to apply a bit more when we come to play cricket,” Holder said.