WI 176/9
ENG 155
WI win by 21 runs
There could not possibly be another extraordinary climax approaching the incredible. Could there? Indeed there could not. The winners, however, were the same.
Defying a cold, dank autumnal night of the kind most of their team might never have experienced let alone played cricket in, West Indies defeated England by 21 runs in the solitary Twenty20 between the sides, Liam Plunkett’s dismissal sealing their victory. In terms of conditions or method, it was nothing like the World Twenty20 Final in Kolkata, when these teams last met in this format. Then West Indies needed 19 to win from the final over and acquired them in four balls with successive sixes.
Now they managed a total which, though not as large as it looked like being, put them solidly in the game before they put the squeeze on England. The ball (or balls since several were required) was damp going on drenched but the tourists used it admirably. England began at the gallop but after the removal of a rampant Alex Hales were never properly in the hunt.
West Indies did not quite sustain a blistering start after being put in. It was hinted by their captain, Carlos Brathwaite on Friday, that Chris Gayle had been superseded as a spectacularly buccaneering opener by his new partner, Evin Lewis. Gayle seemed to take this as a personal slight and swiftly eased into the familiar routine.
A lovely full swing of the bat launched the ball straight or over mid-wicket. England obliged by bowling length balls, a modern heresy.
By the end of the six-over powerplay, the tourists had 72 and Gayle was threatening to take the match over the hill and far away. Having struck his 100th six in international T20s, he was prevented from doing so by a piece of remarkably indolent running when he untypically dabbed the ball to point, thought of running, changed his mind, had it changed back for him by Lewis and then chose to saunter while ball watching.
The throw by Jason Roy was not perfect but Liam Plunkett, at the bowler’s end, gathered it nonchalantly on the stretch. The innings never had quite the same purpose thereafter, though Lewis did show the reason for his garnering high praise. Not as brutally powerful as Gayle, his timing still allowed him three sixes and six fours in an innings of 51 spanning 28 balls.
West Indies understand their game well enough to recognise that they will perish in pursuit of quick runs. And perish the middle order did. The first 10 overs brought 106 for 1, the last ten 70 for 8, the last five 38 for 4.
There were cameos, none significant, all valuable. Everything in conditions appeared against them and soon they were slipping and sliding, in between desperately blowing on their fingers for warmth, that is. But Brathwaite bowled Hales, making a tad too much room outside leg for once and a clatter of wickets followed.
Of the 14 previous T20 internationals between the sides starting in 2007, West Indies had won 10, including the most recent, the final of the world championship. Statistics may not tell all but that is pretty telling both about skills and passion for the short form.
England have always talked a good T20 game, sometimes they have played it, as in 2010 when they won the world event going away. In general it took them some time to catch up but now, in a world where the shortest form of the game still looks as if it might eventually prevail over all other cricket, the international version finds itself in limbo.
The next World Twenty20 is in 2020 – the International Cricket Council could hardly dare miss the date – and it means that matches before then, no matter how thrilling, may have a perfunctory air. There has long since been a tacit concession by senior administrators that T20 is a game for club franchises in various parts of the world.
This winter will see tournaments featuring big names in Bangladesh, South Africa and Australia (there are hardly enough stars to go round) and eventually India. All T20 roads still lead to the IPL.
The status of the one-off T20 international, plopped among three- or five-match series of Tests and one-day internationals, remains hard to gauge. As with this match at the Emirates Riverside there was an element of the circus coming to town. Nothing wrong with modern circuses, of course, but the precise cricketing context is elusive.
It was hardly helped by an evening start at a time of year when it was bound to be cold as the day wore on, even in an Indian summer. West Indies can rarely have felt further from home but did not let the cold affect their nerve.
1st ODI
England 210 - 3 (30.5 overs)
West Indies 204 - 9 (42.0 overs)
England win by 7 wickets
Jonny Bairstow in his latest role as a one-day international opening batsman – and wizard boundary fielder – shepherded his side to the simplest of victories in the first match of the series. England cruised home by seven wickets on the nearest we are likely to come to a balmy Manchester evening at this time of year. Bairstow hit a fluent, unbeaten 100, his first ODI century, which means that it will take a while for the displaced Jason Roy to regain a place in England’s best team.
“It’s a long time since I made my debut at Cardiff [six years ago] so I’m really delighted,” said Bairstow, who must regard this as a landmark innings that is likely to forge a new career for him as an ODI player.
The win was so emphatic that this match is unlikely to linger long in the memory, beyond that of the Bairstow family. The home fans could take some satisfaction in an efficient England performance but there was little excitement and much early frustration. Those who arrived promptly had to wait two hours before the conditions were deemed to be playable and there was not much reward, for their patience since the game lacked much drama. The outcome was seldom in any doubt.
The quirky 12.30pm start never came to pass. At 11.30am, as the sun came out, England were happily playing football on the outfield; West Indies were knocking up with bats and balls. At 1.45pm the sun was still beaming down and the playing area was deserted except for Rob Bailey, the fourth umpire, and a forlorn groundsman.
There had been no play because of a damp outfield and a second inspection was imminent; there was a reluctance to start because of the risk of player injury. Ho-hum – on that basis rugby players would never take to the field. The two-hour delay contrived to make our summer sport look ever more ridiculous. If it is deemed to be a good idea to schedule international matches for the second half of September, do not expect perfect playing conditions.
After the second inspection, sanity prevailed; the umpires gave up consulting with wary captains and decreed that play would commence at 2.30pm and the contest became a 42-over match. Thereafter, there was never any indication that the players were being exposed to unacceptable risks – provided they had remembered to apply sunscreen diligently.
West Indies, who won the toss and batted, only threatened when Chris Gayle, playing his first ODI since the World Cup of 2015, was at the crease. He should have been dismissed for a duck when driving in Chris Woakes’s first over, but Joe Root at second slip – probably standing too close given the batsman – dropped a chance that sped towards him at chest height.
Then Gayle batted as Gayle does; there was minimal foot movement whether he was playing a shot or running – sidling would be nearer the truth – between the wickets. Gayle has long been a phenomenon, mechanical yet spellbinding at the crease. If the ball is in his slot he hits it for six – there were three of those, two off David Willey, who was swiftly removed from the attack, and one off Woakes. All of them were walloped back over the bowler’s head. There was also the odd dismissive pull shot interspersed with the occasional quick single, which for Gayle, 38 on Thursday, constitutes a gentle jog while the ball travels to long-on.
It looked as if Root’s miss would cost England dear. But soon the fielding and the match situation improved significantly. First, Alex Hales snaffled a fine catch at square leg after the early introduction of Moeen Ali to remove Erin Lewis. Then Root atoned brilliantly, sprinting back from extra cover to take a superb catch over his shoulder from a lofted drive by Gayle off Woakes.
Off limped Gayle – there was a suspicion that he had damaged a hamstring while walking one of his singles – and then only Shai Hope with a polished 35 and Jason Holder, who hit a skittish, unbeaten 41 at the end caused England any concerns.
Marlon Samuels spent a lot of time in reconnaissance but to no avail. His 17 occupied 46 balls and his dismissal was noteworthy since the bowler was Ben Stokes. Upon review Samuels was given out caught down the leg side and, rather disappointingly for those who like a bit of pantomime (and we are nearly at that time of the year), there was no salute from Stokes nor even an indication to the departing batsman.
Batting was a much more straightforward occupation for England. After a brisk start Hales cracked a catch to backward point but Bairstow and Root expertly guided England towards their modest target. Their strokeplay was sure, their running between the wickets rapid and well-judged – in stark contrast to the start of the West Indies innings. The Yorkshiremen had added 125 when Root played on for 54. Eoin Morgan departed for 10 but Stokes, despite hitting two sixes, allowed Bairstow just enough time to register his hundred.
It could be a long 10 days for the tourists and this defeat confirms that next year they will have to embark upon a tricky qualifying process to appear in the 2019 World Cup.
2nd ODI
Match abandoned due to rain
England's second one-day international with West Indies was abandoned after only 2.2 overs at Trent Bridge.
Having lost the toss, the home side were 21-0 when they were forced off the field, with Jonny Bairstow on nine and Alex Hales 10.
The latest play could have started was 17:56 BST, but the decision to abandon the game was taken at 16:15.
England lead 1-0 in the five-match series, having won the first game at Old Trafford by seven wickets.
The third ODI will be held at Bristol on Sunday.
West Indies opener Chris Gayle, who turned 38 on Thursday, was ruled out after pulling a hamstring in the warm-up.
A team spokesman said Gayle would have a scan to assess the extent of the damage.
3rd ODI
England 369-9, West Indies 245
England won the third ODI by 124 runs
The anticipation was that the boundaries at Bristol would be too short for one of the most popular left-handed batsmen on the globe. And so it proved. But it was not just Chris Gayle who was delivering a hail of sixes into the stands at square leg. Moeen Ali, the man who protested earlier this summer that he “can’t hit sixes like the others”, sped to the second fastest century hit by an Englishman in a one-day international match.
Moeen’s response to peppering the ball into the stands so regularly was a little more self-effacing than we have come to expect from Gayle, who struck 94 – including six sixes – before he was brilliantly run out by Adil Rashid.
To post his third ODI century Moeen required just 53 deliveries, eight of which were struck over the ropes with no discernible effort. When he joined forces with Chris Woakes England were stuttering a little at 217-6 but Moeen ran amok in the last six overs, when England plundered 93 runs. Moeen’s second 50 took just 12 balls and a total of 369 for nine was way beyond West Indies’ compass. Despite a vintage Gayle innings England won by 124 runs.
Thus Moeen broke the monopoly for fast hundreds that had been created by Jos Buttler. Until Sunday afternoon Buttler had struck the three fastest centuries for England in this format, the quickest of which was a 46-ball blitz in Dubai against Pakistan in 2015.
By the end of Moeen’s innings any West Indian resolve in the field had disintegrated. The bowlers were mesmerised into bowling deliveries in the slot that enabled Moeen to free his graceful arms; dropped catches and misfields were commonplace, very often when the ball was in the vicinity of the old guard of Gayle and Marlon Samuels. The least brutal of cricketers had shredded any ambitions the tourists had of squaring the series, and with devastating power.
Even at the start of the innings the West Indies were unable to shackle the England batsmen but did they did manage to dismiss six of them inside 35 overs. The pitch was much more benign for batting than it looked, but there was some encouragement for well-directed pace bowling, a goal that proved elusive for West Indies. Jonny Bairstow was soon caught and bowled off a leading edge by Jason Holder but Alex Hales and Joe Root were quickly into their stride.
Root purred from the start with three sumptuous boundaries in an over from Jerome Taylor. His runs flowed from magnificently orthodox strokes. After 10 overs Hales was also threatening but a shrewd review after he had been hit on the pad by a sharp delivery from Miguel Cummins sent him on his way. Cummins would be both dangerous and profligate throughout the England innings.
Eoin Morgan then edged his first ball. It is long established that Morgan flits from feast to famine as a batsman; he is currently enduring famine, with 22 runs in his last nine innings. However Root and Ben Stokes gorged themselves in a vigorous 132-run partnership, high-quality batsmen in very good form.
Then there was a little collapse; Stokes was caught on the cover boundary while Buttler and Root fell to Cummins. It seemed that the target would now be manageable until Moeen teed off. He became only the second English batsman – after Buttler again – to score a century batting at seven. But he did break one record by hitting the most runs from consecutive overs in ODI history when taking 48 from the 45th and 46th over – and he only faced 10 balls of those two overs. At one point he had hit six sixes in eight balls.
There was only one way for the West Indies to respond and they did not need much prompting to swing. Evin Lewis hit two sixes from David Willey’s first over before holing out; Shai Hope flickered but the main threat inevitably came from Gayle. Amid the odd miscue Gayle hit some thunderous sixes of his own, one of which, a pull off Liam Plunkett, cleared the stands at square leg.
Samuels, the other old-timer, was less productive. For the second time in the series he was given out caught behind after a review. Neither the umpire, Simon Fry, nor the bowler, Plunkett – who took a career-best five for 52 here – spied or heard a nick as Samuels drove but Ultra Edge delivered the tiniest of squiggles, which was enough to change a decision that Samuels accepted with remarkable phlegm.
But with Gayle at the helm, the chase was still on. There were three consecutive sixes off Moeen straight down the ground, struck with massive certainty. Then Gayle, now in the 90s, made the mistake of contemplating his hundred and he seemed minded to get them in singles. He decelerated and then called for a sharpish one to Adil Rashid at mid-wicket.
The Yorkshireman swooped and his throw broke the stumps with Gayle a centimetre or two adrift. Despite a late flurry from Holder that moment settled a vastly entertaining game in which more sixes – 28 – were hit than in any other ODI played in England.
4th ODI
West Indies 356-5: Lewis retired hurt 176 (130), Holder 77 (62)
England 258-5: Roy 84 (66), Moeen 48* (25)
England won by six runs (DLS method)
England completed a series win over West Indies with a six-run victory on the DLS method as rain ended the fourth one-day international early.
Three days after hitting a 53-ball century at Bristol, Moeen Ali struck an unbeaten 48 off 25 deliveries to take England to 258-5 after 35.1 overs.
Jos Buttler was 43 not out, the recalled Jason Roy having made 84.
Evin Lewis struck a fine 176 before retiring hurt and Jason Holder hit 77 in West Indies' 356-5 at The Oval.
England take an unassailable 3-0 lead into the final match of the series at Southampton on Friday, a game Lewis looks likely to miss with a suspected hairline fracture of an ankle.
Despite missing Ben Stokes - who was involved in an incident outside a Bristol nightclub on Monday morning - England sealed a third limited-overs series win in three attempts this summer, after ODI and Twenty20 successes over South Africa.
Moeen turns it on again
The timing of Moeen's innings was superb in every sense.
With rain forecast and England behind the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern target, he initiated a thrilling counter-attack from 181-5 with a series of searing drives and meaty leg-side heaves.
He dominated an unbroken stand of 77 with Buttler, smashing six fours and two sixes to rescue England's fading hopes.
Moeen punched the final ball of the 35th over through cover to take England ahead, and only one more delivery was possible before the players were forced to leave the field shortly after 19:30 BST. With no improvement in conditions, victory was confirmed at 20:15.
As well as Moeen played, it was impossible not to feel sympathy for Lewis, whose sensational 130-ball innings underpinned what appeared to a daunting West Indies total, albeit on a fine surface.
Lewis brilliance goes to waste
Lewis has built his reputation on brutal strokeplay, but he demonstrated commendable maturity in leading West Indies' recovery from 33-3 after Chris Woakes found the outside edge of both Chris Gayle and Shai Hope and trapped Marlon Samuels lbw in the first seven overs.
Driving forcefully through the off side off front and back foot, the left-handed Lewis received valuable support from Jason Mohammed, who contributed 46 to a fourth-wicket stand of 117 before he was caught behind cutting Adil Rashid.
Even the early stages of Lewis' alliance with Holder were relatively sedate, but two successive sixes off Liam Plunkett from Lewis heralded the beginning of an onslaught that saw 144 runs plundered in the last 11 overs of the innings.
Having brought up a 94-ball century, Lewis needed only a further 26 deliveries to go to 150 as an over of Moeen's off-spin was taken for 25.
A double century looked a distinct possibility until Lewis, in digging out a Jake Ball yorker, hit the ball into his right ankle, left the field on a stretcher after lengthy treatment and went to hospital for an X-ray.
It said much for the quality of Holder's hitting that he played an almost equal part in a riotous fifth-wicket stand of 168 in 18 overs with Lewis, while Rovman Powell swung to good effect late in the innings.
5th ODI
• West Indies 288-6; England 294-1
• England won by nine wickets
• England won by nine wickets
Jason Roy, handed a place back in the ODI side because of the absence of Alex Hales, seized his chance with rare ruthlessness. At The Oval he struck a fluent 84; here he batted just as well but for a little longer, finishing with 96, more than enough to ensure another English victory by nine wickets, yet still a source of some frustration.
However, things are looking up for Roy. Five days ago after England’s win in Bristol all he could anticipate was a few more days as a drinks waiter. Meanwhile his new partner, Jonny Bairstow, conjured his second ODI century of the series with barely a false stroke. England have no shortage of batsmen capable of tormenting international bowlers – provided they are propelling a white ball.
So the players of both sides can finally have a bit of a break, although that may not apply to other employees at the ECB. It was something of a relief to all concerned that the season is over – and it is not even October yet. There were a lot of white bucket-seats unoccupied at the Ageas Bowl, which suggested the punters have also had enough unless they had all somehow been consumed by Botley’s equivalent of the Bermuda Triangle as they doggedly tried to make their way to the ground.
Ball yielded 94 from his 10 overs, one of which was a maiden. Chris Woakes, suffering from “stiffness”, was not available for selection. Suddenly his fitness throughout the winter seems of paramount importance, so no risks could possibly be taken with him.
West Indies’ 288 for six was nowhere near enough. Bairstow was Roy’s dependable partner in an opening stand of 156. He scored at a run a ball yet was initially overshadowed by Roy, whose pull shots regularly found the boundary, often with a touch of elegance. It was a surprise when Roy was lbw to Miguel Cummins with a century there for the taking but it was not much of a setback for England.
England won with 12 overs to spare, a satisfactory conclusion to a successful summer. Yet somehow there was a conspicuous absence of elation.
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