Defending champions England brushed aside their struggles in the opening phase of the Twenty20 World Cup with an eight-wicket win over previously unbeaten West Indies in the Super Eight opener in St Lucia on Wednesday.
England’s bowlers restricted the West Indies to 180-4 on the same pitch where the hosts had scored 218 against Afghanistan on Monday, before captain Phil Salt led the way with 87 off 47 balls as the batsmen completed the job in 18 overs.
Having entered the second leg on net percentage, England will receive a huge confidence boost from defeating one of the tournament’s in-form teams at the top of Group 2 in South Africa, who they meet at the same venue on Friday.
“I thought we did really well to restrict such a strong line-up,” England captain Josh Buttler said.
“It’s still a decent score and you have to play well to get them out. But I thought we were very smart with the bat.”
The meeting of the only two teams to have won the T20 World Cup twice was expected to be a celebration and much of the victory will go to the English bowlers who thwarted the hard-hitting locals.
After winning the toss and electing to field, they served up 51 dot balls and took regular wickets in the second half of the innings to prevent any of the West Indies batters from reaching their half-century.
“I think we left 15-20 runs out there as a batting team (and) we could have done better with the ball,” West Indies skipper Rovman Powell said.
“Credit has to be given to England’s bowling unit, you can see they have killer plans and the execution was good.”
A groin injury ended opener Brandon King’s night on 23, but the West Indies were still confident of a big score when they reached their halfway mark at 82 for no loss.
Just when they would have wanted to pick up the pace, however, fellow opener Johnson Charles fell into a trap and holed out in the deep for 38 off the bowling of Moeen Ali.
Danger Man Nicholas Pooran and Powell both scored 36 before being dismissed in successive overs and Andre Russell followed for one in the next over to leave the West Indies on 143-4 in the 17th over.
Sherfane Rutherford (28 not out) and Romario Shepherd added another 37 runs, but England would have been confident that it was an achievable target, especially after Salt and Buttler put on 67 for the first wicket.
Buttler was trapped in front by Roston Chase’s off-spin for 25, but Salt continued to spin before being joined by Jonny Bairstow.
Salt let Bairstow (48 off) take the strike initially, but he hit 30 from Shepherd in the 16th over with three sixes and three fours to all but end the chase.
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