- Phil Salt made a brilliant 87 off 47 balls to help England win in St Lucia.
- Jonny Bairstow supported him with an unbeaten 48 against the West Indies.
- “It was a lot of fun,” said the victorious Salt after the match.
England silenced a rapt crowd of about 10,000 at the Darren Sammy Stadium in St Lucia last night to beat hosts West Indies by eight wickets and take a major step towards the T20 World Cup semi-finals.
They posted a challenging score of 181 before a formidable partnership of 97 in 7.2 overs between Phil Salt and Jonny Bairstow saw them rush home with 15 balls remaining, giving a major boost to the Super Eights net run-rate.
A win against South Africa here on Friday will all but guarantee a place in the last four before facing the United States in Barbados on Sunday.
As the impressive chase picked up gear, Salt smashed 30 in the first over off Romario Shepherd, who had just returned from paternity leave, to score 87 off 47. He has scored 353 runs at a strike rate of 194 in his last four T20 innings against these opponents and looks just as destructive against the competition.
“Thanks to Salt,” West Indies captain Rovman Powell said. “He always gives us a hard time.”
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Meanwhile, Bairstow scored 18 and 31 in a game-winning defeat to Namibia in Antigua before adding a non-runaway 26 and 48 after regularly criticising the press, and England will be hoping he can hang in there all the way to the final.
The match was billed as a battle between the power hitters on the Caribbean’s most authentic surface.
The match ended with West Indies outscoring England by 10 for 7, but it was England who played the smarter cricket, with Adil Rashid leading the way as they choked down the opposition in crucial phases of the innings and expertly neutralised the threat of left-arm spinner Akeel Hosin.
Each team is vying to become the first to win the trophy three times, but on paper England looks more likely to make history. Australia may be regretting not having tried so smartly to extend their winning streak here against Scotland last Saturday.
If any proof was needed that T20 is a fickle format, England’s fortunes in this World Cup prove it. Coach Matthew Mott will be much happier with life after finishing 45 minutes before he could have been dismissed because of rain in Antigua last week.
The chase got off to an ideal start with Salt and Buttler putting on an opening stand of 67 in the eight overs. The chase ended when Buttler, on 25, got going with Roston Chase’s off-spin and got his bat caught behind the pads as he aimed for leg, leading to a lbw decision being reviewed in vain.
Moeen Ali, promoted to No. 3 perhaps to counter Hosein and fellow slow left-armer Gudakesh Moti, scored a quick 13 before dragging Andre Racell to deep midwicket to put England on 84 for 2 in the 11th over. The key was that they were on pace.
It also helped that Bairstow was in form and nearly overtook Salt, who was leading by 43 runs, contributing 42 runs to put together a swift 50-run stand. Hosin and Moti failed to take a wicket, conceding 67 runs in the process, while the loquacious wicketkeeper Nicholas Pooran missed two chances, including a crucial one for Salt to snatch seven from Hosin.
Salt then got through some quiet overs with Bairstow nervous, before bowling Shepherd an astonishing 464. By this point Pooran was as quiet as the crowd, who had expected more from one of three teams unbeaten in the group stage.
“It was a lot of fun,” Salt said. “It was great to play against a really strong team that was on a roll in our conditions and to be able to work an innings with Jonny and get the win, and they’ve got some great spinners. [against seam]I had to take that chance.”
It was a strange game for the West Indies, with five players reaching 23 but no one surpassing local man Johnson Charles’ 38. But even that took 34 balls, while Pooran, whose devastating run of 98 from 53 on the same pitch against Afghanistan two days earlier had to content himself with 36 from 32.
The ball seemed a little slower but Powell, promoted to number four, still hit five sixes from 17 balls, including three sixes in an over off Liam Livingstone, which ended with Powell edging it out to Mark Wood at short third man.
And although Scharfane Rutherford, the architect of West Indies’ crucial group-stage win over New Zealand, provided a ferocious late display, smashing Jofra Archer at backward point for six in the final over of the innings, West Indies’ total still felt about 20 runs short.
Archer had a mixed bag of good and bad, conceding 21 in his first two overs, but his 16th over was world-class. Pooran failed to score with four of his first five balls, hit his final one to Buttler and trudged out, furious with himself.
But the driving force behind England’s attack was Rashid, still ranked number one in the ICC’s T20 cricket rankings. His eighth ball was smashed into the ground by Charles for a six, but otherwise he only conceded more than a single once, thwarting West Indies’ late acceleration when he had the dangerous Russell caught at long-on for a single.
Rashid’s fellow spinner Moeen also played his part, taking his first wicket of the night when Charles mistimed the ball to Harry Brook at long-on.
The rest of the attack struggled to get going, but Sam Curran bowled a crucial 19th over, giving away just six, and Reece Topley smashed two of the first four balls of the match down the leg side, setting England on their way to conceding a wasted 10 with wides.
And Wood, who replaced Chris Jordan in the team that beat Namibia on the same ground where he scored five in his first Test in February 2019, made 36 in his three overs.
Earlier, West Indies opener Brandon King, who had been promising with 23 runs off 13 balls, was painfully dismissed after hitting Curran around mid-off. Given his scoring rate, his dismissal hurt as much as losing a wicket and killed vital momentum.
For England, it could have just been the night their tournament began.