Salt assault leads England to smooth eight-wicket win over WI

Source: The New Indian Express

GROS ISLET: Opener Phil Salt slammed a belligerent unbeaten 87 as defending champions England began their T20 World Cup Super Eights campaign with a crushing eight-wicket win over co-hosts West Indies here.

Coming off a scorching display against Afghanistan, West Indies amassed a competitive 180 for four, but England waltzed to 181 for two in 17.3 overs in their Group 2 match.

Salt led the Three Lions' charge with a bruising innings that came off 47 balls with seven fours and five sixes. The right-hander received copious help from Jonny Bairstow (48 not out, 26b, 5x4, 2x6).

But equal amount of credit should be given to the English bowlers for producing as many as 51 dot balls with Jofra Archer (1/34) and Adil Rashid (1/21) accounting for 22 of them in their tidy spells after Jos Buttler opted to bowl.

Their win with 15 balls to spare took the net run-rate of England to 1.343, putting them ahead of South Africa who posted a win over tournament co-hosts USA earlier on Wednesday.

"That's a really good performance from us, we executed well with both bat and ball. I thought we bowled really well to restrict such a powerful batting line-up, still we had to chase it down, but smart play from us. The partnership between Salt and Bairstow was great," England skipper Jos Buttler said.

WI now have a negative NRR -1.343 which may be a worry for them as they will have two must win matches against the USA and South Africa coming their way.

"When you look from the batting perspective, we were 15-20 runs short. We could have given a better display with the ball," felt WI skipper Rovman Powell.

On Brandon King's injury, Powell said: "Just a bit worried, but hopefully, he can pull through for the next game."