LONDON, England (CMC) – West Indies will hope to salvage something from their short Twenty20 campaign here when they face England in the last encounter of the two-match series today.
The visitors were blown away in Friday’s first clash, crushed by 10 wickets after a weak performance at the Oval.
However, experienced all-rounder Dwayne Smith said the Caribbean side would be looking to hit back to level the series when the second game bowls off at 18:30hrs (13:30hrs Eastern Caribbean time).
“We recognise what we need to do. As a team we talked about what went wrong and how we have to put it right for tomorrow’s (today’s) match,” said Smith who struck an exciting 33 on Friday.
“I’m sure we will give England a better run as we look to level the series.”
Thanks to Smith’s fireworks and those of fellow opener Johnson Charles (36), West Indies were off to a bright start after being sent in, gathering 51 from 30 balls for the first wicket.
A middle and lower order slump, however, saw them lose their last eight wickets for 28 runs in the space of 36 balls and bowled out for a meagre 125.
England then cruised to their target in style, with opener Alex Hales getting 62 and Craig Kieswetter, 58.
West Indies captain Darren Sammy admitted that at the moment, England would be very difficult to beat.
“They are number one and they play like number one,” he said of the World T20 champions.
“All the guys, even on debuts, come in fairly experienced from County cricket. It shows in their game – they are quite confident and that’s a page we can take from their book.
“At the moment whatever they do and whoever comes in just tends to fit in the team right away.
“We have our goals and we want to win the cricket match but this was about seeing who could compete at this level.”
West Indies will look to more from the experienced Marlon Samuels and exciting all-rounder Andre Russell in the batting department and hope that pacer Fidel Edwards can also fire in the bowling attack.
England, meanwhile, have no such worries and opted not to practise yesterday while West Indies found the nets at the Oval for a much needed session.