NAGPUR: West Indies captain Darren Sammy wants his team to quickly forget Sunday’s six-run defeat against Afghanistan and concentrate on the upcoming World Twenty20 semi-finals.

“We leave this game here and see it as the blip in the tournament,” said Sammy after West Indies lost against a team it had never played before in a Twenty20 international.

“Now we have two knockouts to play, two more steps, semifinals in Mumbai, take that step, then Kolkata here we come.”

Afghanistan’s spinners restricted 2012 champion West Indies to 117-8 after Najibullah Zadran’s 40-ball unbeaten 48 had led Afghanistan to 123-7 on a turning wicket in their last Group 1 match.

Despite losing its first game in the tournament, West Indies topped the group on superior net run-rate ahead of England.

West Indies was troubled by Afghanistan’s spin quartet of Mohammad Nabi, Rashid Khan, Samiullah Shenwari and Amir Hamza, who claimed five wickets between them on a turning wicket.

“I don’t think it was difficult,” Sammy said.

“At the end of the day we just didn’t play smart enough.”

West Indies was already assured of a place in the semifinals after winning all three group matches against England, Sri Lanka and South Africa, including a 48-ball unbeaten century by Chris Gayle against England.

While Gayle was rested for Sunday’s game, Andre Fletcher - who scored 84 not out off 64 balls against Sri Lanka - sustained a hamstring injury and had to retire hurt at the end of the sixth over. Marlon Samuels could score only five against Afghanistan after a 44-ball 43 against South Africa.

“This time nobody did it, nobody took the responsibility (and) just left it for the next man to come,” said Sammy, who emphasized he had wanted a clean sweep.

“Only thing on our mind was to win, that’s why we play cricket games, we wanted to come out of this group winning four out of four.”

Sammy added: “Looking at the history of the tournament no team has done it (won the title) undefeated.”

Despite playing for the first time against Afghanistan, Sammy said the loss wasn’t due to lack of preparation.

“We’ve watched them play cricket, we have professionals and they have video footage of whoever we want, this is 2016 not 1960,” Sammy said.

“We are quite disappointed that we lost the game, but we won’t let that define our tournament. At the end of the day we were really happy chasing 124, we should have gotten it. We lost the game, they didn’t win.”

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2016