Joe Root scored an unbeaten 90, his first innings of note since being appointed as England's Test captain last month, to help England defeat the West Indies by four wickets despite a careless middle order collapse. They now have an unassailable 2-0 lead in the three match series.
Although not captain in the shorter formats, Root's calmness under pressure, taking responsibility to lead England to victory bodes well for his Test captaincy which will begin in July against South Africa. His innings was a lesson in calm accumulation - he only hit three boundaries - and he looked in total control throughout except for one chance, off a spinning Devendra Bishoo leg-break, which went through Ashley Nurse at slip.
Chasing a below-par 226 to win, it required an unbeaten partnership of 102 between Root, the only England player to look comfortable against spin, and Chris Woakes, who finished 68 not out, for England to avoid an embarrassing defeat following a collapse of five wickets for 37 runs at the hands of the West Indian spinners Ashley Nurse and Devendra Bishoo.
If the first ODI was a boxing match, England would have scored a TKO in the final round. The result was pretty much as expected, with a few notable displays in England’s largely workaday performance, but West Indies will have been encouraged by pretty much going the distance. A 45-run defeat was certainly not the mismatched mauling some may have feared. Shannon Gabriel’s new-ball spell had England in trouble, while Ashley Nurse did a decent containing job in the middle overs; then with the bat, Jason Mohammed led the resistance after West Indies looked to be in trouble at 39 for 3. Mohammed and Jonathan Carter combined composure with power – particularly in the case of the latter – and perhaps only the difficulty of chasing on a slow surface undermined them towards the end. Stuart Law, West Indies’ new coach, will surely feel he has some ingredients to work with as he tries to marshal a rise from No. 9 in the rankings and secure automatic World Cup qualification. Narrow defeats are not worth any more ranking points than heavy ones, however, and immediate improvement could be required as the tourists warm to the conditions and the task at hand.
ST. JOHN’S, Antigua – The West Indies Cricket Board has announced the addition of two Twenty20 Internationals to the itinerary for the Pakistan Tour of the West Indies.
As a consequence of the additional matches, the series between World Twenty20 champions West Indies and the visiting Pakistanis will now be contested over four matches.
“Twenty20 is an exciting format and this is another opportunity for our fans to indulge in the thrilling atmosphere that surrounds these matches,” said Roland Holder, WICB manager, cricket operations.
“We look forward to fans in Barbados and Trinidad coming out and cheering our team on to victory.”
The first of the two additional T20Is will be played on Sunday, March 26 at Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados. The series then moves to the Queen’s Park Oval in the Trinidad & Tobago capital of Port of Spain, where they will now be three T20Is instead of the originally carded two.
The matches will now be contested on Sunday March 26, Thursday, March 30, a public holiday, and will be followed by matches on Saturday, April 1 and Sunday, April 2.
Exiled West Indies batsman Darren Bravo will be heading to India to play for the Kolkata Knight Riders for the 2017 Indian Premier League (IPL) after his No Objection Certificate (NOC) was signed by West Indies Cricket Board (WICB) CEO Johnny Grave. In a newspaper report recently (not Newsday), it was stated that Bravo might not be granted the required NOC due to his currently unsettled dispute with the WICB.
A mature century from Eoin Morgan helped England to victory in the first ODI of the series against West Indies in Antigua. The win was secured with almost three overs to spare, with Chris Woakes and Liam Plunkett taking four wickets apiece.
Morgan, the England captain, had spoken the day before the game about the need for his side to temper their aggressive instincts a little on a surface that he anticipated would do little to encourage stroke-play. It proved an accurate analysis. On a sluggish, slightly two-paced pitch England were precariously placed at 29 for 2 when Morgan walked to the wicket after West Indies had won what appeared to be an important toss in a match delayed by rain.
It took Morgan seven balls to get off the mark and 33 to reach double-figures. But he did not panic. Recognising that this was a surface on which a total of 270 might prove match-winning, he batted accordingly and reached his tenth ODI century - and second in three matches - with his second six in the 49th over of the England innings. It was a masterful demonstration of experience and calculated aggression in conditions demanding more subtlety than aggression.
It was the first time England had failed to post a total of at least 300 when batting first in an ODI since February 2016. But, in these conditions, it was a challenging total and testament, perhaps, to some growing sophistication within an England side that has tended, until now, to try to blast its way to success. Had they attempted to make 350, they could very well have subsided for fewer than 200.
