It’s win toss, win match in the Caribbean, as five games into this white-ball tour and all five have been won by the team for whom the coin fell in their favour.
England were the beneficiaries this time, as they won by seven wickets to take a two-nil lead in the five-match T20 series. As the coin settled, Jos Buttler smiled, and his opposing captain Rovman Powell stuck a joking punch in his ribs. They knew how much this match, threatened by the potential for rain and starting at 4pm, rode on a matter of heads or tails.
Dew rises around the world. But as interim head coach Marcus Trescothick explained last week, it is the combination of dew – making the ball wet and difficult to bowl with in the second innings – with the nature of wickets in the Caribbean – slow and stoppy in the day, fast and slick with dew in the evening – that makes the shift in conditions so dramatic.
Matches played at the Kensington Oval during the Caribbean Premier League start at night, somewhat equalising the advantage of batting second, but this series games are starting at 4pm in order to better suit a UK TV audience. The result, however, has created a perfect storm for conditions to have the maximum influence across the game. In private, some England players have said the best course to victory in this series is to win three tosses out of five. So far, they are two from two.
But you still need to capitalise on your luck, and in favourable bowling conditions, England did exactly that, as an excellent bowling display was backed up by a Jos Buttler masterclass as he smashed 83 from 45 balls.
To get England going, Jofra Archer and Saqib Mahmood were superb with the new ball. In overcast conditions both bowlers got the ball swinging wildly. Archer always on target, Mahmood not, sending down six wides in his opening three overs in search of the magic ball – which he duly found when trapping Roston Chase lbw.
Archer was at his unplayable best, as he got the ball to swing viciously away from the left-handed Evin Lewis, the ball rising and taking the glove of the opener on its way through to the keeper. Such was Archer’s dominance with the new ball, when Chase walked out at No 4 he was greeted with two slips, a leg slip and a short-leg.
Mahmood and Archer are great friends, with Mahmood often staying with Archer on the island in their spare time. Before this series, Mahmood even enquired about playing a club game for Archer’s team Wildey CC as part of his preparation, but the match, spread over two weekends, didn’t allow for it.
It was an altogether impressive bowling performance from England. Sam Curran entered the attack in the eighth over and delivered a maiden, Adil Rashid regularly bowled with a slip and a leg-slip as West Indies, normally powerful, were left struggling in challenging conditions, before 32 runs from the final two overs lifted them to 158.
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Phil Salt was a centurion on Saturday night, but was dismissed for a golden duck on Sunday, as he spliced a drive to Brandon King at short cover off the bowling of Akeal Hosein from the first ball of the innings.
But that would be the only jeopardy during the chase. England decided against attacking the left-arm spin of Hosein and instead chose to take their risks elsewhere.
Buttler, batting at No 3 for only the third time for England, took a while to get going, but then launched into the type of form that has made him one of the most watchable cricketers in the world for the last decade. Faced with Gudakesh Motie, Buttler launched him over the corner of the Worrell, Weekes and Walcott Stand. As they looked for the ball, Buttler flashed his bicep with a wink to his teammate Will Jacks.
Ahead of the series, Buttler said his main priority was to ensure he enjoyed his cricket again. Tonight at the Kensington Oval, he did exactly that.
