For the seventh match in succession, it was win toss, win match in the Caribbean, as West Indies shone in a St Lucia runfest, chasing down England’s total of 218 with an over to spare.
In perfect conditions for batting, a combination of playing on the same wicket as Thursday, a blazing afternoon sun and an at times fierce crosswind led to 32 sixes being struck across the match.
“I thought it was a really good game of cricket,” Jos Buttler said. “It was a fantastic batting wicket. I thought we put up a really good total, and West Indies played really well to chase them down.”
West Indies’ ball-striking was breathtaking, as the openers Evin Lewis and Shai Hope added 136 for the first wicket in 9.1 overs. Lewis finished on 68 off 31; Hope 54 off 24.
It was an onslaught that came out of nowhere after the pair had scored just five runs off the first two overs of the innings. Saqib Mahmood had even managed a maiden. But once the debutant John Turner’s second over – the third of the innings – went for 25, the ball stopped swinging and the West Indies started.
The next seven overs saw 131 runs scored in an onslaught of hitting that was capped off by a remarkable 15-ball passage of play that saw 53 runs scored and three wickets fall. Liam Livingstone came on to bowl the eighth over only for it to disappear for 30, before Sam Curran’s second over went for 23. It was two overs that appeared to seal the match for West Indies, only for three wickets to fall in three balls during Rehan Ahmed’s over and threaten to turn the match.
First, Lewis was caught by Jacob Bethell running in from the boundary, before a mix-up between the new batter Nicholas Pooran and Hope saw Hope run out. Then, Pooran himself was clean bowled. Everything was happening all at once in St Lucia, and it was doing so quickly.
At the toss, the West Indies captain, Rovman Powell, cracked a smile when the coin fell in his favour for the first time this series. The 4pm start times have been giving teams batting first a double-disadvantage as the wicket has been at its worst under the afternoon sun, before dew settles in the evening making the pitch good for batting and the ball slippery for bowling. No team is yet to win a match this tour after losing the toss.
But for the first half of this match, England appeared to have flipped that script, as thanks to half-centuries from Phil Salt (55) and Bethell (62no) England had reached what looked to be an imposing total of 218.
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For Salt, it was a continuation of his fine form against West Indies, while for Bethell it was further confirmation that England have a special talent on their hands.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen in the Caribbean that once you win the toss, you go on to win the game,” Powell said after the match. “It’s too skewed. We’ve been fighting, it’s just unfortunate that the series is already over when we get a win.”
With the series already in the bag for England, the Saturday crowd was smaller than hoped in St Lucia, but the atmosphere was still special as the locals savoured the spectacle of their team dispatching sixes in every direction.
A late wobble from the home team threatened to make the game interesting, but the match was finished in fitting style as Sherfane Rutherford struck consecutive sixes into the crowd to seal a five-wicket win ahead of the final match of the series on Sunday.
