Excellent bowling, aided by some poor shots, enabled West Indies to restrict England to 155-9 in the World T20 final in Kolkata on Sunday.
Having been sent in to bat, England simply could not build a decent partnership and lost wickets whenever they looked like stepping up the pace.
They got off to a disastrous start, not reacting to the slower pace of the opening overs: leg-break bowler Samuel Badree’s second ball slid through Jason Roy’s lethargic defence, and in his third over he snapped up the struggling Eoin Morgan with a googly.
In between, Andre Russell had been gifted a wicket when Alex Hales clipped a poor leg-side delivery to short fine-leg.
Joe Root played some impressive boundary shots off Suleiman Benn’s left-arm spin, but by the end of the powerplay, England were 33-3. Badree bowled through for a return of 2-16, with 14 dot balls. Just as well, as he had to go off injured in taking an excellent catch to dismiss Liam Plunkett.
Root and Jos Buttler had to be more judicious with their shots, bringing up the first 50 off 52 balls (with the first six of the day).
Buttler hammered successive sixes off Benn, but then tried one too many to be taken on the fence off Carlos Brathwaite’s slower ball, for 36, which put the brakes on a gathering momentum. Still, the hundred came up in the 13th over; the second fifty taking 25 balls.
England’s cause was dealt a double blow when Ben Stokes ballooned a catch to point off Dwayne Bravo, followed two balls later by Moeen Ali, caught behind.
The hammer fell when Root tried to ramp Brathwaite, only to be taken at short fine leg. His 54, off 36 balls, was as good as it got. From 111-7 in the 15th over, David Willey made a useful contribution of 21 off 14, but England did not have the firepower to raise the run rate above 7.75 an over
♦Earlier in the day, West Indies women ended Australia’s dominance of the tournament by chasing down a total of 148, thanks to Hayley Matthews (66 off 45) and Stafanie Taylor (59 off 57) in a partnership of 120.
