West Indies Women Head Coach Courtney Walsh lamented the continued poor form of his team after they lost by nine wickets in their second ODI against South Africa at the Coolidge Cricket Ground in Antigua on Friday.

After winning the toss and choosing to take first strike on a good batting pitch, the home side were bowled out for 120 off 44.2 overs. South Africa in replay cruised to 121-1 off 25.4 overs.

Walsh was a disappointed man at the end and expressed his concern at the regrettable performance.

“We won the toss and didn’t bat well; 120 is not a score that you can probably fight a lot with so I am very disappointed, and I am sure the players are disappointed as well in the score that we got on the wicket. I don’t think the wicket is a 120 wicket so that is where it all went wrong,” Walsh said.

“When you bat on such a good-looking batting surface you need to post a total and we didn’t.”

The West Indies were in early trouble at 18-3 after 11.4 overs as Marizanne Kapp (3-24) dismissed openers Hayley Matthews for 3, Kyshone Knight for 5 and Deandra Dottin for 1.

The best partnership of the innings was the fourth-wicket stand of 31 from Chadean Nation and Kycia Knight but at 49-3, Nation tried to sweep Sune Luus (2-27) and was bowled for 15.

Shakiabi Gajanabi (14) and Qiana Joseph (21) stitched together a stand of 28 for the sixth wicket for the West Indies and Karishma Ramharack (7) Anisa Mohammed (15) added 23 for the ninth but the West Indies was still unable to bat for the full 50 overs.

Walsh said the players didn’t achieve a simple objective and is concerned that there were better efforts at the lower end of the batting order than at the top.

“We planned to bat the 50 overs out…we got more partnerships at the back end than at the front end so that is very concerning and if you don’t get runs up front then it is going to be difficult to get the total you want to get or the target at the back end so the batters didn’t bat well today,” he said.

Ayabonga Khaka took 2-14 and Dane van Niekerk finished with 2-14 to complete the rout.

In reply, South Africa lost their only wicket with the score at 35 when Hayley Matthews dismissed Lizelle Lee for 18. After that, Player of the Match Laura Wolvaart scored an unbeaten 71 and Lara Goohall 25 as the visitors eased to the win.

Walsh said the team must regroup quickly if they are to save the series.

“There are three games to play, the series hasn’t been lost as yet. We have to come out and fire on all cylinders and try and win the next three games if we want to win the series but we have to focus a lot more on the other game because that game is the decider for the series,” he said.

“In the last two games the batting hasn’t come to the party so it hasn’t given the bowlers anything to work with. It is an area we have to improve on urgently.”