England made a horrific start to their limited-overs tour of the Caribbean, crashing to an eight-wicket defeat to West Indies.
After being inserted in a rain-interrupted opening match of three, they mustered just 209 in a poor performance with the bat and then saw West Indies cruise to a reduced target of 157.
Significantly, the Windies’ chase was delayed by a heavy downpour in the interval that slicked up a soporific surface. It proved to the liking of Evin Lewis, whose big-hitting threatened to inflict a sixth 10-wicket loss on England in the history of one-day history.
However, Lewis had already lost opening partner Brandon King, shortly after a 9.10pm resumption following the second of two lengthy stoppages, when he himself fell attempting to loft a ninth six that would have taken him to back-to-back centuries.
Lewis made a spectacular return from a three-year exile from ODIs last weekend, hitting an unbeaten 102 off 61 balls to seal a consolation end-of-tour victory over Sri Lanka.
This time, his runs came at a more sedate pace, although the 32-year-old carried his form with him across continents, surviving the good balls from Jofra Archer and England new boy John Turner during a testing power play examination and pounding anything slightly off line for six.
Three times he cleared the ropes in an initial 10-over block that cost 49 wicketless runs, and two further blows followed in a half-century off 46 balls.
West Indies were only 13 runs short of inflicting England’s 15th defeat overseas in their last 22 outings by the time he holed out to long-off from the bowling of Adil Rashid.
However, England will spend Antigua’s Independence Day on Friday mulling over their white-ball batting deficiencies. Failing initially to get into the right tempo, they then relinquished a position of strength at 165 for four in the 35th over when Liam Livingstone’s counter-attacking 48 came to a meek ending.
It was not in isolation. England marked Livingstone’s international captaincy debut – in the injured Jos Buttler’s absence, he became the sixth across all formats this calendar year – with an innings littered with poor decision making and infuriatingly repetitive dismissals.
Phil Salt fell inside the first 10 overs of a one-day international for the 18th time in 23 innings when an attempt to greet Jayden Seales’ first delivery after switching ends with a boundary resulted in a skier and his opening partner Will Jacks also mishit an aerial blow.
The policy of going over the top was made precarious by the lack of pace in the pitch, but unperturbed, England’s batters stuck with the tactic when piercing the gaps for ones and twos, and rotating the strike, appeared the wiser choice.
How this England team, devoid of the Test players who featured in Pakistan as recently as three days ago, could have done with an older head like Joe Root in its ranks.
Jacob Bethell showed some of the classy stroke play that has has caught the eyes of the Test selectors but fell for 27, a tally matched by the combined scores of the tourists’ four debutants.
Bethell’s departure, so soon after after that of Jordan Cox, triggered a rebuild from 93 for four, but England were left to rue Livingstone’s inability to make the recalled West Indies star Shimron Hetmyer pay for putting down a dolly of a chance at midwicket when he was on 44.
It came during a flurry of boundaries – including the match’s first two sixes, struck off off-spinner Roston Chase – yet it cost the Windies just a handful of runs as Livingstone fell in the next over, innocuously poking a return catch to the slow left-armer Gudakesh Motie from a delivery that held up.
The termination of a 72-run stand with Sam Curran was the first of six wickets in 11 overs as England criminally left 29 balls unused.
There had been 60 remaining when Curran inexplicably picked out long-on to provide Motie with a third success in six deliveries. He finished with the second four-wicket haul in ODIs while seamer Seales returned career best figures of two for 22.
