England crush Windies by 10 wickets
by Adam Hathaway
CRICKET: LONDON, Sept 24 (AFP) - Ravi Bopara produced
England's best ever Twenty20 bowling performance to set up a crushing
10-wicket win over the West Indies in the first game of a two-match
series at the Oval on Friday. The Essex all-rounder took 4-10 with his
medium pace, eclipsing the previous best mark of 4-22 jointly held by
Paul Collingwood and Jade Dernbach, as the tourists slipped from 52-0 to
125 all out. World champions England then cruised to victory, with 28
balls to spare, Alex Hales making 62 not out and Craig Kieswetter
unbeaten on 58.
England captain Graeme Swann claimed several of his players have made
a case for inclusion in the squad for next year's Twenty20 World Cup in
Sri Lanka.
"We can take a lot of credit for the way we approached this game. We
are trying to take these two games very seriously with the World Cup
coming up and this has a gone a long way to confirming one or two
players into that squad if not into the final 11," he said.
The West Indies got off to a flying start but the introduction of the
slower bowlers - Samit Patel (2-23), Swann (1-30) and Bopara - stalled
the run rate and a rash of wickets saw the tourists collapse from 97-2
to a below par total.
But their captain Darren Sammy did not seem to heed the lessons of
his side's innings and didn't introduce his slower bowlers until the
eighth over.
By then England were 66 without loss and had the game under control.
Hales, who made a second ball duck in his only previous international
against India, passed 50 from 36 balls and Kieswetter did the same
shortly afterwards taking 41 deliveries and England passed 100 in the
12th over on their way to a convincing win. Sammy said: "We were always
on the back foot. We had a great start but when we let them in we did
not bounce back and that's that.
"We were playing the number one team and whoever they bring in seems
to do well." It had seemed a different story when West Indies had been
put in by Swann.
They raced past 50 in 35 balls with Dwayne Smith helping himself to
20 off one over from Tim Bresnan before the spinners arrived and put the
brakes on the scoring rate. |