Posted by Gareth Parry Added on: June 24 2012
England 173 for 3 (Hales 99, Bopara 59) beat West Indies 172 for 4 (Smith 70*, Bravo 54) by seven wickets
The West Indies were looking for their first victory of their tour to England in the final and only Twenty20 match of their visit.
Darren Sammy, the West Indian captain, won the toss and elected to bat first. It looked like the visitors would post a below par score after only a little more than six overs. They were teetering at 30 for 3, having lost the key wicket of Chris Gayle. Steven Finn had bowled an excellent opening spell and went on to record excellent figure of 4-0-22-2.
However the West Indies boasted an extremely powerful batting line-up with Dwayne Smith and Dwayne Bravo consolidating their sides position before launching a stunning counter assault in the final eight overs.
The power hitting of first Smith and Bravo and then Bravo and Pollard took the West Indies to a daunting total of 172. Smith, who top scored with 70 from 54 balls, was the main architect of the score but Bravo's contribution of 54 from 36 deliveries and Pollard's cameo of 23 from 13 balls brought the innings to life. In the final eight overs the West Indian side scored 107 runs to underline their devastating potential with the bat.
Sadly for the West Indies their bowling prowess was some way short of that which they possessed with the bat. England were comfortable winners with a partnership of 159 from Alex Hales and Ravi Bopara forming the bedrock of the England chase.
Hales was in imperious form and fell just one run short of his century with his 99 runs coming from just 68 balls and including six 4's and four 6's. He and Bopara, who scored 59, played two virtually chanceless innings to dismiss the visitors resistance. The fact that not one West Indian bowler had an economy rate of less than 7 runs per over demonstrated England's dominance as they once again proved too much for the visitors.
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