T20 World Cup | England annihilate defending champions West Indies to announce their supremacy

In what could be termed as an anti-climax, England annihilated West Indies by six wickets inside 10 overs of batting after bundling them over for a mere 55. Such was the magnitude of England’s dominance in the game that they have rocketed their net run rate to a staggering +3.46 on the points table.

There was a huge sense of expectations and build-up for this game as the finalists of the last World Cup were meeting in their opening encounter of the game, but it turned out to be a damp squib with only England turning up with their best.

England were ruthless in their approach with the ball and the skipper Morgan would have wanted the same ruthlessness with the bat as well but batsmen were not as clinical in their game.

Nevertheless, England hit the ground running in the game right from the second over of the game when Chris Woakes perplexed Evin Lewis with a slower delivery and Moeen Ali clung on to a fantastic catch running back from mid-off. From that point of the game, it was no coming back for the defending champions and the Englishmen established their authority over the game with each passing delivery.

After Lewis, Moeen dragged an aerial shot off Lendl Simmons’ bat to deep midwicket and a perfectly positioned Liam Livingstone was all over the moon with that easy opportunity.

The duo of Chris Gayle and Shimron Hetmyer threw caution into the wind and played delightful strokes off Woakes and Moeen respectively. However, the wily off-spinner got the better of him by bowling a faster, back of length delivery that hurried onto him and he could not hit his pull shot over Morgan at short mid-wicket and the Windies were in tatters.

Gayle continued on his merry way and attacked Tymal Mills, but the left armer was smarter than him on the occasion and he cramped him with a short delivery that the “Universe Boss” tried to blast over the leg side. 

Dwayne Bravo was promoted up the order ahead of Nicholas Pooran and Kieron Pollard to stabilise the innings and he did not do untoward things to get out. Instead, he was the victim of a superb catch by Jonny Bairstow at the point and all the hopes of Windies hitting their way out of trouble was disappearing.

Tymal Mills returned to edge Pooran behind the wicket and the Windies needed a hell of a lot of luck and magic to come out of the rut they found themselves in.

Their last hope was resting on the bale shoulders of Andre Russell and Pollard but Adil Rashid, who was away from the buffet of wickets in the early part of the game, got the big fish of Russell with a beauty that breached an out of character defensive prod.

If the flop show was not enough, Rashid returned with his second over and got the better of Pollard, who was desperate to make a statement than playing out the entire length of 20 overs and Windies obituaries were finally on the scoreboard.

Rashid finished with an astonishing bowling figure of 2.2-0-2-4 and England made a light work of the experienced and explosive batting lineup of West Indies.

In pursuit of a mere 56, England were off to a decent start as Jason Roy and Jos Buttler were on the money with crisp shots. However, there was a mini-collapse halfway through the powerplay as the left-arm spinner Akeal Hosein picked two caught and bowled wickets of Bairstow and Liam Livingstone in an outrageous manner.

Albeit the game did not end in a perfect finish for England, but the team management led by Eoin Morgan would be delighted to see his troops coming firing all their cylinders and bamboozling the world champions in the first game of the tournament. In a way, the game could also be seen as a statement by England to their critics who doubt their game plan and strength in these conditions.

First, the game between Australia and South Africa that turned out to be a low-scoring thriller, the night game between England and West Indies turned out to be a dampener, and the arch-rivals England Australia would be the happier side to go past the first day with a win in their pockets.