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We didn't play like world champions: Brathwaite

West Indies captain Carlos Brathwaite was clearly disappointed after his team went down to Pakistan in the first T20 International at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Friday night and said that they didn't play like the world champions.
 The West Indies were virtually a no show with them spluttering to 115 before losing by nine wickets. Pakistan dictated the game from start to finish and were rightly rewarded for their effort.
"We didn't play like world champions, we didn't play like the No. 1 team in the world, and the result shows," Brathwaite said.
 And Brathwaite said that they didn't read the conditions and lost because of poor execution.
"We lost because of poor execution as well as their good bowling. We are an aggressive, exciting team and two games ago, we scored 240 odd and today we scored 115," he said.
 "We have ebbs and follows ups and downs and it just didn't come off for us. I don't think we assessed the conditions quickly enough. Majority of the shots didn't show situation awareness," he added.
 But Brathwaite gave credit where it was due after all-rounder Imad Wasim had them on the mat with his left-arm spin.  
"I don't want to just say we didn't bat well. Credit must go to Imad Wasim, who bowled fantastically. Anytime you get 5 for 14 in an international match you must be doing something right, and to get it in a T20 international is even better. But these things happen," said Brathwaite.
 "Imad had a head start on us, playing CPL for Jamaica Tallawahs. He knew our batsmen, and we knew him as well, and planned for him, and on the day his execution was better than ours. We didn't execute it the way we wanted to. On some other day those same shots could have gone for boundaries and sixes and if we were 45-50 odd for 1 after six overs, setting a beautiful platform to go on and score 140-150, which looked like would have been a winning total on the surface," he added.
 
Despite the heavy loss, Brathwaite said he would not tell his men to curb their attacking instincts. "We are an aggressive team and I won't tell any of the guys in the room to lose their aggression. It is just a matter of being more situation-aware," he said.
 The West Indies were in danger of making it to the list of lowest totals in T20 Internationals but were saved the blushes by Dwayne Bravo, who fire fought his way to his fourth half-century in T20 Internationals.
And Bravo, along with Jerome Taylor added 66 runs for the ninth wicket to give them something to defend. But that wasn't enough.
 "Anytime a team is 20-odd for 5, they need a herculean effort by two, three guys. I know we had that from Bravo getting 50-odd, Jerome Taylor played a fantastic innings, and to be honest defending 115 is always going to be difficult. We tried our best, it didn't quite come off. Our batters didn't play very well. The key was getting early wickets. I tried my best as captain to switch around the bowlers and mix it up so that batsmen don't get accustomed to one bowler. That didn't work and fantastic work from Khalid Latif and Babar Azam," said the 28-year-old.