END OF THE WORLD
Last-over blitz wrests crown from England
England were denied the title of Twenty20 champions of the world by four late hammer blows into the Kolkata night sky as Carlos Brathwaite propelled himself into folklore and Ben Stokes into despair.
West Indies needed an imposing 19 off Stokes’s final over, and England looked set for a victory that would have capped a remarkable year for Eoin Morgan’s white-ball revolution. Instead, with Stokes’s old nemesis Marlon Samuels watching gleefully from the nonstriker’s end, the giant Brathwaite — 6ft 8in of Barbadian muscle — cleared the ropes four times from the first four balls.
after the third of them, with the scores level, emotions spilled over. Samuels, whose career highlights often feature Stokes, celebrated in close proximity to the distraught bowler, prompting umpire Kumar dharmasena to intervene.
But if Samuels’s jubilation came with a distinct edge — and his later comments about Shane Warne, another of his sparring partners, suggested an anger that burns deep — then it was hard to blame him.
Stokes it was who had been in Samuels’s ear as early as the third over, when West Indies found themselves 11 for three in pursuit of a modest 156. and when he was apparently caught behind off liam Plunkett for 27, Stokes had more words for the man who last year greeted the England allrounder’s dismissal in a Test in grenada with a military salute.
Replays, however, showed Jos Buttler had not taken the ball cleanly. as the scoreboard changed from 37 for four back to 37 for three, the thought occurred that England were messing with forces they did not fully understand.
The bottom line would prove hard for them to take, for without Samuels’s magnificent unbeaten 85 off 66 balls, West Indies would not have got close.
Joe Root had stunned them at the start, not simply by being given only his second over of the tournament, but by removing openers Johnson Charles and Chris gayle inside his first three deliveries, both caught in the deep two World Twenty20 titles — an honour that instead befell West Indies — was thanks to another supreme innings from Root, and a late flurry from the depths of 111 for seven.
England had made a dreadful start after Sammy had won his 10th Twenty20 toss in succession — a one in 1,024 shot which West Indies were not in the mood to waste.
leg- spinner Samuel Badree knocked back Jason Roy’s leg stump with the second ball of the innings, and it was eight for two when alex Hales picked out fine leg in the next over.
When Morgan edged Badree’s googly to slip, completing a tournament in which his captaincy has comfortably outshone his batting, England were 23 for three and stood accused of melting under the pressure of an Eden gardens final. Root, though, batted as if immune to the context, and Buttler took three sixes in two oovers from Sulieman BenBenn’s left-arm spin. at 110 for four in the 114th over, England had a platform of sorts.
Three wickets for one run in four balls changed all that, as Bravo surprised SStokes and Moeen alali with shorter deldeliveries, and Root rampramped to short fine leg, departideparting for a sumptuous 54 ffrom 3636. Willey and the lower order gave England something to defend, and Root then did with the ball what he had done with the bat, breathing belief into their body language.
But Samuels is never happier than when he spies a foe — real or imagined — and Brathwaite fed off the simmering aggression.
On a famous day for West Indies cricket, when both their men and women were crowned world champions, England were left with the crushing realisation that, these days, no equation is safe.
It did not feel like the moment to point out that they will be stronger for the experience. But the truth was that it took something special to deny them.