New Delhi, India – Kemar Roach created ICC Cricket World Cup history with an amazing hat-trick, as the Windies demolished the Netherlands by 215 runs in their Group B contest at the Feroz Shah Kotla, on Monday night.
It was a solo hat-trick for the 22-year-old as he had Pieter Seelaar and Bernard Loots plumb leg-before with in-swingers, and then produced a superb yorker to shatter the stumps of last man Berend Westdijk to end the match. Roach ended with the amazing figures of 6 for 27 from 8.3 overs to take the Man-of-the-Match award as the Dutch fell for 115 chasing 330 for 8 made by the Windies.
For Roach it was a career-best performance beating the 5 for 44 he took against Bangladesh two years ago. He became the first West Indian to take a hat-trick in the ICC Cricket World Cup, and the sixth man in World Cup history to achieve the feat.
"I feel really great. This is an amazing feeling, getting a hat-trick and doing it in the World Cup. This is the biggest stage and to perform this way for the West Indies on this stage is just amazing. We needed a win and the captain and the coach asked me to be aggressive and go for the wickets," Roach said after the match.
"I knew I had to give it my all and that’s exactly what I did. At first it (hat-trick) was not on my mind. I was just looking to finish off the batsmen and get the win for the team but then the captain pointed out to me that I was on a hat-trick. I went for broke and it worked.
"It’s tough coming here as a bowler to the subcontinent, you have to be very accurate and consistent, once you get that right, you get wickets."
Overall Roach said the team was happy with the performance as they secured their first victory in the tournament. The result moved the Windies to third spot in Group A with two points from two matches at an impressive Net Run Rate of +1.879.
"Our bowling is coming on. We have some very good bowlers and once we click we can get the job done. We can definitely repeat this kind of performance. We will take a lot of confidence into the game against Bangladesh. This match was good preparation for the Bangladesh game. We’ll go there on a high. Bangladesh are an improving team but we believe we are better than them."
The West Indies will travel to Bangladesh on Tuesday. Their next match will be against the host nation on Friday at the Shere Bangla Stadium. First ball is 2.30 pm (4.30 am Eastern Caribbean Time/3.30 am Jamaica Time).