TAUNTON, England — West Indies assistant coach Roddy Estwick said the dismissal of Shai Hope late in the innings against Bangladesh made the difference between a score of just over 321 and one closer to 360.

Hope’s 96 was complemented by Evin Lewis’ 67-ball 70 and Shimron Hetmyer’s 50 (26 delivieries) as West Indies made 321-8 in the 2019 ICC World Cup match at the County Ground on Monday.

Crucially, the 25-year-old Hope was dismissed at the end of the 47th over, just when the West Indies needed to get the most out of the final overs.

In reply, Bangladesh rocketed to 322-3 in 41.3 overs with Shakib Al Hasan and Liton Das thrashing unbeaten knocks of 124 and 94, respectively.

Their third loss in five matches means the West Indies face the prospect of missing out on the semi-finals.

“We settled for Shai to bat right through the innings. Shai got out in the 47th over [but] I felt he should have gone on and batted right through to the 50th and we would have probably got the 360 we were looking at,” Estwick said during the mixed zone session afterwards.

There was also criticism that the stylish right-hander did not find the gaps often enough in his 121-ball innings.

At the 2019 ICC World Cup Hope’s role as opener or at number three is to hold the backbone of the batting together and allow the naturally more enterprising batsmen around him to attack freely.

His contribution often dictates the kind of score that West Indies are likely to get. Aside from Monday’s 96, he has registered knocks of 11, 68 and 11.

“It was good that he went deep, but probably we could have asked him to show a little bit more intent. Having said that, we still were losing wickets at crucial stages. We needed one of the top four players to go through. Yeah, he got down to the end, but unfortunately it wasn’t enough today,” Jason Holder, the West Indies captain, told reporters during a post-game conference.

Hope conceded he was faced with a dilemma as wickets fell rapidly in the latter half of the innings.

“It was just a case [in which] we kept losing wickets at the back end. I knew there wasn’t much behind me after that so I was in between a rough place,” he told reporters.

He argued that, in the end, an insufficient total and inaccurate bowling were their major downfall.

“Runs were needed, many more runs. I’d say 350 would’ve been good. Obviously we needed to bowl a bit better than we did. I don’t think we played the best cricket. We could’ve bowled a bit straighter to the batters, I think we gave them too much width,” Hope said.