After two games of this series England seemed in a rut. They had followed defeat in the preceding one‑day internationals by losing the first two games in the shorter format, and confidence appeared to have ebbed dangerously. What has happened since then has been nothing so prosaic as a simple shift of momentum, it has been a complete and fundamental redefinition. And having ripped up the form book, England set about shredding the history books as well.
Here once again was a team to strike terror into opponents. England have spoken of using this tour to learn about local conditions, and on this night their batters mastered them. Phil Salt scored a brilliant 119, with Jos Buttler and Liam Livingstone adding 50s, and having been put in to bat they scored a frankly ludicrous 267 for three, the kind of mountainous total that forces chasing teams to take unsustainable risks. No side could be better suited to the task than this West Indies team, but for all that they viciously assaulted England’s bowling this was too much even for them and they finally ran out of wickets three balls into the 16th over, still 75 runs short.
