PATCHED-UP ENGLAND ON THEIR WAY
Root’s ton takes them home after injury blows
It may have come at a cost but this was an emphatic way for England to take a huge step towards the World Cup semi-finals with a complete dismantling of woeful West Indies.
First they had the pace and variations — and the unexpected bonus of Joe Root popping up at a crucial time with two wickets — to brush West Indies aside for a paltry 212.
then, effectively two batsmen down following injuries to Jason Roy and Eoin Morgan, they only needed four of the remaining nine as Root rose to the challenge as England’s emergency opener by strolling to an unbeaten 100.
Make no mistake, this was a pivotal match for an England team who could not have afforded to lose a second time in their first four matches and still been rated as World Cup favourites.
Instead, after this thumping eight-wicket win sealed with 101 balls to spare, they know victories over Afghanistan and Sri Lanka next week will see them almost assured of a place in the last four.
It is fortunate they are facing the two weakest teams in the tournament next, too, because the cost for England came with a worrying injury scare over Roy and a lesser one for captain Morgan — in the wars in Southampton for a second time.
this game, with the rain mercifully staying away, was not even eight overs old when Roy pulled up in the field with a recurrence of the hamstring problem that kept him out for seven weeks when first sustained in the Caribbean earlier this year.
the last thing England need is to lose the destructive Roy now, particularly as ideal stand-in Alex Hales is indisposed.
So England will keep Roy in the squad in the hope the ‘tightness’ in his left hamstring heals before the business end of this tournament. If anything, Morgan, who fractured a finger ahead of the World Cup warm-up game against Australia here, looked in more distress than Roy when he left the field towards the end of West Indies’ innings.
But the good news was the captain had suffered only a back spasm. He could yet be fit for tuesday’s date with Afghanistan at Old trafford.
this all left England vulnerable but there was no need for alarm because they had been superb with the ball — helped by West Indies having one of those days when they resemble a shambles rather than a highly-talented outfit on the up.
time after time West Indies gave away wickets by trying to clear the unfashionably-long Southampton boundaries. then, with so little to defend, they looked uninterested in the field, to the consternation of a steaming Sir Curtly Ambrose in the BBC commentary box.
England were not perfect and coach trevor Bayliss will be unhappy with the two dropped catches by Mark Wood and Chris Woakes that could have proved costly if Chris Gayle and Andre Russell had been at their belligerent best.
Instead, Woakes and Wood, passed fit after his latest left ankle scare and again preferred to Moeen Ali, were superb.
Jofra Archer certainly rose to the challenge of facing the West Indies team he turned his back on five years ago. But if Wood and Archer were again faster than anything West Indies’ pace-filled attack could muster and took three wickets each, England were also grateful for Root’s mixture of off-spin and leg-breaks just when West Indies were threatening a half-decent total.
When Nicholas Pooran and Shimron Hetmyer, the future of Caribbean batting, were together, West Indies could have tested England but Morgan turned to seventh bowler Root in the absence of second spinner Moeen and was instantly rewarded.
First, Hetmyer offered Root a return catch before Jason Holder struck the England test captain for an effortless six but then prodded an attempted arm-ball that was shaping to be a leg-side wide straight back to Root.
Once Pooran had become the first of two wickets for Archer in successive balls — umpire Kumar Dharmasena had his second not out decision of the innings overturned when Jos Buttler detected a thin edge — there really was no way back for West Indies.
England, with a small target, opened with Root rather than Buttler in Roy’s absence and he responded by doing what Joe Root does — making everything look easy and reaching his 16th one-day international hundred and second of this World Cup off 94 balls.
He also became the first Englishman to make three World Cup hundreds and is now the leading run-scorer in this tournament as England go second in the table.
Jonny Bairstow had struck seven effortless fours before being struck a nasty blow on the helmet by Russell — who collapsed in a heap and had to be helped off — then dismissed by Shannon Gabriel.
But there was the bonus of 40 from Woakes, promoted to No 3 in the reshuffle, before he was sent back by a rare piece of good fielding from substitute Fabian Allen.
It all ended with Universe Boss Gayle producing some Universe Dross with the ball and joking with the crowd in a light-hearted show at odds with the scale of West Indies’ demise.
they will struggle to make the last four now but England, albeit in a patched-up state, are on their way.