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Darren Sammy: Defeat will not affect Windies' mindset

Darren Sammy remained upbeat following West Indies' loss to Afghanistan, saying: "We'll see it as the blip in the tournament."

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West Indies captain Darren Sammy has told his side to forget their surprise Super 10 defeat against Afghanistan as they prepare for a World Twenty20 semi-final on Thursday.

The Windies came into their final group match on Sunday having already qualified for the last four, but lost their unbeaten record as Associate nation Afghanistan defended a modest total of 123-7 to win by six runs and end their campaign on a high.

Sammy's men, winners of the 2012 World T20, can nevertheless look forward to a last-four meeting with either India or Australia in Mumbai.

"We're quite disappointed that we lost the game, but we won't let that define our tournament," said Sammy.

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"Whatever happened today doesn't affect how we're going to play in the semis.

"We'll leave this game here and see it as the blip in the tournament. Now we have two knockouts to play, two more steps, semi-finals in Mumbai, take that step, then Kolkata here we come [for the final]."

Sammy insisted the Windies had not taken their foot off the gas with qualification already secured.

"No, we didn't take it lightly," he added. "They are a side we are supposed to beat and we just didn't do that. But the main objective coming out of the Super 10 was to qualify for the semis, and that we did.

"It's a total we should have got. I think we just kept losing wickets, all throughout the innings. We didn't really have one partnership. One partnership of fifty plus would have won us the game. At the end of the day we just didn't play smart enough.

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"The games we have won, every match, somebody took responsibility to bat through. Chris [Gayle] did it in the first game, [Andre] Fletcher did it in the second and Marlon [Samuels] did it in the third, so this time nobody did it, nobody took responsibility – just left it for the next man to come."

The Windies will assess a right hamstring injury sustained by Fletcher, which forced the all-rounder to retire hurt before briefly returning at the end of his side's unsuccessful chase.

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