Phil Salt registered his third century in the shortest format of the game to help England steamroll West Indies by eight wickets in the first T20I of the ongoing five-match series at the Kensington Oval in Barbados.
Salt (103* off 54 deliveries) thrashed the Windies bowling attack and hammered nine fours and six maximums during his match-winning knock. Chasing 183 to win, England got off to a flying start and posted 73 runs inside the first six overs. Salt did the bulk of the scoring whereas Will Jacks scored 17 off 10 balls with the help of two sixes before getting dismissed by left-arm orthodox bowler Gudakesh Motie.
Before the tourists could settle themselves for the early setback, they lost their captain Jos Buttler for a duck.
Buttler was making a return to the international scene after a long injury layoff and his wicket dented England’s spirits. However, Buttler’s dismissal was all that the hosts could celebrate for the rest of the night as Jacob Bethell and Salt took the game away from their grasp with some brilliant T20 batting exhibition.
Salt and Bethell added 107 runs for the third wicket and killed the game. Both batters targeted the West Indies bowlers one by one and ruined their bowling figures. Notably, Salt equalled Kevin Pietersen to become the second-fastest England player to score 1000 T20I runs in just 32 innings.
While Andre Russell (27 runs in two overs) and Shamar Joseph (45 runs in three overs) leaked runs at an alarming rate of 13.50 and 15.00 runs per over Motie (1/45) and Romario Shepherd (1/45) got taken for 11.25 and 11.73 runs per over.
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Bethell played second fiddle to Salt but still scored 58* off just 36 deliveries at a whopping strike rate of 161.11. The southpaw struck five fours and two sixes during the course of his innings. The Salt-Bethell duo got England home with 19 balls to spare.
Earlier in the game, West Indies posted 182 runs on the board with Nicholas Pooran (38 off 29 balls) top-scoring for them.
The hosts got off to a miserable start as they lost their top three – Brandon King, Evin Lewis and Shimron Hetmyer inside the first four overs with just 18 runs on the board.
The next to fall was skipper Romario Shepherd who threw a few punches and scored 18 runs off 10 balls before Adil Rashid got the better of him.
Russell and Shepherd scored 30 and 35* respectively to get West Indies out of harm’s way, however, it was Motie who played a blazing 14-ball 33 at a strike rate of 235.71 to take them to 182.
