Watch cricket video highlights of England tour of West Indies 2024. Second Twenty/20 between West Indies and England. Venue of the match will be Bridgetown.
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In his second innings as captain of England’s T20I team, Jos Buttler went on the rampage. He scored a ruthless 83 off 45 balls to help the tourists take a 2-0 lead in the five-match series and neatly ice a chase of 159. With eight fours and six sixes ringing off his bat during a century stand with Will Jacks that saw England cruise to their requirement with more than five overs to spare, Buttler, batting at No. 3, continued the excellent work of his bowling attack by achieving his 26th 50-plus score in T20 internationals.
After winning the toss once more and choosing to bowl, England took advantage of the circumstances to put the West Indies three down in the powerplay. Saqib Mahmood scored twice to maintain his strong series start. With a 41-ball 43, Rovman Powell gave the West Indies some momentum, but only Romario Shepherd made it to 20 as Liam Livingstone and Dan Mousley, in their second Twenty20 International, split four wickets. Buttler and Jacks destroyed West Indies’ ambitions of making a game of it with a commanding stand of 129 from 72 balls.
Even if England subsequently lost Phil Salt, their centurion from Saturday’s successful chase of 183, to the first ball of the reply. Both dropped in the same Shepherd over, but the West Indies would not be getting any relief. In T20Is at Kensington Oval, a score of 150 or fewer had only been defended three times, and not since 2010. It was obvious that the West Indies needed to establish themselves with the new ball right away, and they couldn’t have done it more successfully.
Salt’s bold thump went straight to hand in the covers after Akeal Hosein gave his initial ball some air and got a slight spin. On Hosein’s fourth delivery, Buttler was late in jabbing down, causing the ball to bounce over the stumps after deflecting off the bat’s toe. Could the pitch still be difficult to learn? “No,” was the succinct response. Buttler only managed three runs off his first ten balls as Jacks took the lead and hit boundaries against Matthew Forde and Hosein. After two consecutive fours off Forde, Jacks dropped Hosein over long-off.
As Shepherd bowled the last over of the powerplay, England started to feel a bit more at ease. By the end of it, they were figuratively sitting in a deckchair, drinking a cool bottle of Banks. After blasting four high over mid-off, Jacks seized the lead once again before Buttler took over. England ended the powerplay at 56 for 1 after he quickly drilled Shepherd’s slower ball over the sightscreen, walked across to the change of length, and flipped four more over the head of short fine leg after his first of three consecutive boundaries was a rather awkward hack that spun away to the rope at deep backward point.
In the tenth over of the chase, Buttler sent Roston Chase into the crowd to reach a 32-ball half-century after Gudakesh Motie again bludgeoned him down the ground, forcing a new ball to be sent for. Buttler defeated Chase 6-6-4 after Terrance Hinds, making his West Indies debut, was collared for 15 runs as England reached their 100th in the following innings. Three balls after Jacks and one ball after being dropped in the covers, he fell in the next over. However, Livingstone’s four boundaries in 11 balls and six to secure the victory put England in sight of the finish line.
After Bridgetown was battered by rain in the morning, there was early indication that the surface had some juice when Evin Lewis accidentally edged Jofra Archer out of slip while trying to depart in the first over. The ball stood up just enough off the surface to send a swirling leading edge to mid-off, but Brandon King was not in the mood for sighters and attempted to hammer his second ball from Mahmood over the top. Before Archer produced a brute-like lifter to flip the glove through to Salt, Lewis had been probing and poking in the channel.
Mahmood also took his fifth powerplay wicket of the series when he beat Chase on the inside to secure a lbw judgment that was supported by DRS as the umpire’s verdict, despite occasionally finding it difficult to manage the amount of movement available and giving up 10 wides in his initial three-over burst. West Indies finished the fourth over at 35 for 3, which was only slightly better than their opening performance in the first Twenty20 International. Powell and Nicholas Pooran gave the West Indies the pairing they needed, but it wasn’t smooth.
Given the movement available, Pooran quickly decided to dismiss the new-ball pair, and Powell was also cautious, dismissing a maiden from Sam Curran in the eighth. With only one boundary between them, the two scored 35 from 43 before Livingstone’s flighted offbreak left the West Indies No. 3 stranded and enticed Pooran off his ground. Before finding his range, Powell had clawed his way to 18 from 28. He then hit the opening six by sweeping Livingstone over the midwicket boundary. After successfully reviewing for lbw in Sherfane Rutherford, England, he lost another partner.
Despite aiming down the ground, he nevertheless managed to shove Rashid into the rope at extra cover. West Indies reached 100 thanks to another boundary at the end of the over, but just as Powell seemed about to run wild in the last overs, Mousley’s yorker, which dipped under the bat and struck middle stump, gave the 21-year-old his first international wicket. After Powell was dismissed, the lower order heaved away effectively, but the hosts only achieved three boundaries between the conclusion of the powerplay and the beginning of the 15th over.
After Shepherd took consecutive boundaries from Archer and hammered Curran down the ground, Motie took advantage of the additional pace Mousley applied to the ball to lash two fours in three balls. Hinds smashed his second ball for four in international cricket, while Forde found the ropes three times in six balls, all of them wonderfully shot. Mousley’s last over cost 15, with five wides down the leg side.
