With 21 balls remaining, the target of 181 runs was chased down by England opener Philip Salt’s unbeaten 47-ball innings of 87.
The T20 World Cup at Gros Islet in St Lucia on Thursday saw defending champions England defeat hosts West Indies by eight wickets.
Salt partnered with his captain Jos Buttler (25) for a 67-run opening stand and later teamed up with Jonny Bairstow (48*) to add another unbeaten 97 runs.
In a knock containing five sixes and seven fours, one over Salt won a match for England against West Indies due to some ruthless hitting by the English opener off pacer Romario Shepherd. These four sixes were hit in an over that will be remembered for years as one of the most destructive interventions ever seen on a cricket field. This all happened just when Shepherd started bowling his second over being that he had been smashed for eleven runs in his first attempt.
To hammer misery upon Windies’ plans of winning after witnessing their bowlers go through a mauling, Salt started off with four, six, four, six, six and four towards the end of innings.
Salt brought up his fifty in style with an extra cover boundary off the first delivery while he miscued the next one but it still travelled straight down the ground clearing the ropes easily en route to becoming a maximum.
The following ball went for four as it cleared the wicket keeper’s head and then sailed mid-off into orbit before landing safely outside boundary rope related to long-off position.
Continuing from where it left off, the fifth delivery was sent over deep square leg via pull shot onto slower ball and sixth and final delivery went sailing sailed over mid-off towards wide long-on region after being offered as juicy full toss made reached thirty away in only one over by twelve or thirteen or fifteen balls deliveries depending how you account them considering either if you should include wides or not include them.
This is first defeat of Windies in the tournament and their first loss from eight Twenty20 internationals.
The West Indies made 180/4 batting first on the same pitch on which they made 218/5 against Afghanistan in the final match of the group stage on Monday.
