West Indies put their tour blues behind them as they outperformed England in every department to win by 15 runs in the first of two back-to-back Twenty20 internationals at a packed Oval, reports Cricinfo.
Two Smiths - Devon the batsman and Dwayne the bowler - finally gave the tourists something to smile about, even if the Man-of-the-Match award went to Paul Collingwood for his 79 in a losing cause. It underlined the farce of allowing TV viewers from one country to vote by text for the award.
Winning the toss and batting on a perfect pitch, West Indies smashed 208 for 7 thanks to a blistering 61 from 34 balls from Devon Smith and a 26-ball half-century from Marlon Samuels that included one of the biggest hits ever seen at The Oval. And with the ball they didn't allow England to move out of second gear until it was too late - Dwayne Smith reducing the tempo to perfection with 3 for 24 . It was hard to believe that England were the side with heaps of Twenty20 know-how and West Indies were the novices.
England were behind the eight-ball at the halftime pause-for-breath. Poor bowling had let West Indies off the leash and allowed them to climb, for once, into the box seat, and they took full advantage. England started too slowly but Twenty20 is like a one-lap Formula One race - get behind and there's no time to catch up.
There were moments of excitement for the 23,000 capacity crowd as the evening gloom descended. Matt Prior briefly looked dangerous, but their best hope was snuffed out when Kevin Pietersen was well beaten by a throw from third man to what appeared the safe non-striker's end.
Windies smile at last
FE Team | Published: June 30, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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