by After crashing at the World Cup England’s white-ball side, like a malfunctioning laptop, turned off and on again, restarted and updated, but when it was time to press restart they suffered another malfunction.
After achieving their highest ODI score on this ground they went powerless as the West Indies improved it with seven balls to spare to win by four wickets, and as the batsman of their captain, Jos Buttler , indicating that major programming errors continue to be the opposite number. , Shai Hope, who led his team to victory.
Related: West Indies beat England by four wickets in first ODI – live reaction
The hopeful eased past the 5,000 ODI run mark on his way to a brilliant, match-defining century, steadying his side through the middle balls before accelerating to the target of 326. He sealed the win by blasting a six off Sam’s four deliveries Curran as England’s bowling turned ragged in the closing stages, before his best of 119 innings, and 16 centuries, in the format was declared.
“It’s probably at the top,” he said. “It definitely gives us confidence for the rest of the series. We must believe. We are pretty well prepared. We know we’ve put in the work, and it’s only a matter of time before these performances start to click. I see progress, but we have to do it again next time.”
Hope’s composure and quality looked like the West Indies were heading for victory until Romario Shepherd turned the game in their favour. The horror got England’s heads spinning as he scored 48 off 28, with Curran and Brydon Carse losing control under the pressure he and Hope were under. Curran in particular took terrible punishment, and his last three overs went for 19, 15 and 19 again – the last with an unbowled ball. He conceded the highest number of runs (98) by an Englishman in ODIs.
So much for the new dawn. It had fallen to Phil Salt and Will Jacks, two players who were considered not important enough to deserve central contracts but promised the open moves throughout this series, to launch England’s intended rebirth, and they spent themselves on the challenge with insane violence. It was their third opening partnership, and all three sit in the top 10 – out of 33 in total – of England’s best over the past two years.
Salt particularly tore into Oshane Thomas and Alzarri Joseph, West Indies’ opening bowlers, as England scored 76 for no loss in the first eight overs. But then they started losing wickets and momentum, and in the second eight overs they added 34 at 4.25 each, losing three wickets along the way. Zak Crawley and Harry Brook stabilized the innings, the first taking advantage of Gudakesh Motie’s terrible if sun-blindness fell on far on to reach 48 before very emphatically running out to bring Buttler to the crease.
In his last eight matches Buttler has scored 78 runs at an average of 9.75 and a strike rate of 75.72. Here he scored three for 13, taking a couple of easy singles before trying to reverse Motie and wrestle the ball to a slipping Alick Athanaze, who pushed it into the air before taking the second attempt. By the time the ball finally fell into his hands, Buttler had tucked his bat under his arm and started to make his way to the dressing room.
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“I feel good, I just get off,” Buttler said. “It’s disappointing, frustrating, and it’s gone on a lot longer than I’d like, but I’m just able to score my own runs. I’m not going to get any points if I hide and don’t get out of there. You keep working hard, you keep trying, and you trust that it will work out.”
His only complete failure on the England scorecard was Brook top scoring with 71 off 72 and Curran and Carse in particular scoring useful late runs – although not as useful as the ones they fired towards end of West Indies’ reply. A total of 325 felt like enough on a slightly awkward pitch.
But Brandon King and the excellent Athanaze sent the home team’s response without a hitch. Athanaze, at the age of 24 and one of a new generation slowly disappearing into the West Indies team, hit nine fours and two sixes, one of them a viciously perfect pull that sent the ball soaring into the car park, on his way 66 off. 65 and front stand 104.
But as in the first innings the openers fell in piles after each other and after their departure, and when the spin of Rehan Ahmed and Liam Livingstone spurred them on, the scoring slowed and the required run rate increased. It looked like the game was slipping away from them but they never gave up. Eventually Hope and Shepherd took control, the boundary count began to take effect, and it was England who lost theirs.
