The T20I series of England’s tour to the West Indies ended with a loss for the visitors in the final over, as they saw the series slipping away with a difference of 17 runs. The West Indians emerged as the winners, with the final record settled as 3-2 after the series decider.
Let’s look at the critical points of the last match of this series.
Powell and Pollard provide some late hitting
Keiron Pollard won the toss and gave his team a true challenge to build a strong score. The WI inning started with a bang, but their weakness in this series came to bite them, again. Adil Rashid’s leg-spin again came as a haunting ghost for Windies batters, and the middle patch of their batting innings was moving at a snail’s pace.
With an economy of 4.2, Rashid grabbed two wickets and continued his dream form against the Windies. He now has 22 wickets against them at an average of 10.95, an economy rate of 5.69, and a strike rate of 11.5.
On the other hand, Keiron Pollard started slowly but then picked the pace. Along with Rovman Powell, he smashed 66 runs in the final four overs and poured life into the match again, worsening England’s dismal record between overs 16-20. They now have given more than 11 runs per over in that phase since the start of 2021.
With only 15% false shot in his innings, Pollard made the most of his 25 balls and scored 41 runs, complemented by Powell’s unbeaten 35 at a strike rate of 205.88.
Vince and Billings fought hard
West Indies also followed the same pattern as that of England bowling. Pollard brought left-arm spin early in the game and saw Jason Roy’s dismissal. But the reply from James Vince didn’t let this dampen the English spirit as he scored a brilliant 55 runs off 35 balls. But Akeal Hosein leveled up his game, grabbing a wicket in each of his overs, and burst the middle-order balloon of English batting.
The turnover: 20th over of the chase
After James Vince got out in the 14th over, Sam Billings took the reign of the English batting. With 20 runs required in the last over, the game was evenly poised. But the WI captain’s decision to back his most successful bowler in these conditions proved to be a spot-on move.
With four wickets in four consecutive balls, Jason Holder put a solid full stop on the match and the overall series result. This performance was extra remarkable, considering he was hammered for 25 runs in his previous two overs.