Bopara, openers star in England’s lop-sided win
After scripting a West Indian collapse thanks to record bowling figures by Ravi Bopara, England openers experienced no problems in rounding off the target of 126 without being separated. The convincing victory came on the second ball of 16th over with Alex Hales and Craig Kieswetter scoring 62 and 58 respectively. It was a lop-sided win for a new look England side having at least seven new faces and on contrary, the defeat showed lack of depth in West Indies in the absence of star players like Chris Gayle, Dwayne Bravo, Shiv Chanderpaul, Kieran Pollard and Ramnaresh Sarwan. The hosts take 1-0 lead in the two match series and will be eyeing for a clean sweep in the next match.
Both openers took attack to West Indies bowlers who wilted under the assault and offering too many poor ball for the duo to hit boundaries aplenty. Having suffered a two-ball duck against India in the debut game, Hales looked more assured of himself hitting the ball crisply either side of the wicket. Kieswetter, as usual, peppered cover boundary more often than not.
Hales hit eight fours and a six during his 48-ball stay bringing his fifty off 36th ball sweeping Devendra Bishoo for a boundary. Kieswetter’s fifty came off 41st ball he faced on his way to 49-ball 58 hitting three fours and two sixes. West Indies were poor with the ball, bat and in field as well to be out-classed by professional English side.
The tourists had another familiar batting collapse losing their last seven wickets for 21 runs in the matter of 29 balls. The innings subsided after openers had given West Indies a 50-run plus stand inside six powerplay overs followed by a more than run-a-ball 28 by Danza Hyatt. West Indies were sitting pretty at 97 for 3 in 14th over before combination of reckless strokeplay and some quality bowled well backed by good fielding led a slump that saw the team to crumble to 125 all-out. Such was the poor state of West Indies’ batting performance that all of eight batsmen failed to reach double digit scores.
The highlight of England’s bowling effort was Bopara’s 4 for 10 giving him the best figures by an England player. It all started when Bopara got one through Hyatt to have batsman clean bowled last ball of 14th over and following it with the wickets of debutant Nkruma Bonner and Christopher Barnwell for in the 16th. He completed the record figures by castling having Sammy caught by Johnny Bairstow to end the innings. In between Bopara’s heroics with the ball, Jade Dernbach ended debutant wicket keeper Derwin’s two ball stay for duck and Andre Russell and Devendra Bishoo were both run-out to make it worse for the tourists.
Comeback man Dwayne Smith and Johnson Charles had given their team a breezy start at the top creaming English seamers to all corners of the park in the powerplay overs. Charles, playing for the first time for West Indies, looked good creaming some quality strokes either side of the wickets while Smith gave yet another display of immense talent he has got. The duo was going great guns taking score past 50 in 6th over with Smith hitting couple of sixes and three fours in a 21-ball 33.
As expected on slow and dry Oval wicket, it was spinners who did the damage first. Left arm spinner got one to turn across Smith to disturb his off bail and brought end to 51-run opening stand. Marlon Samuels failed to impress clean bowled by England skipper Graeme Swann before Charles’ first international outing that lasted for 39 balls for 36 was cut short by Patel. Patel’s four overs cost him 23 taking couple of wickets while Swann gave 30 in his four.Hyatt though continued to attack English bowlers hitting a couple of sixes but once he departed it was all Bopara and England.
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