- Over-by-over updates from the final match of the one-day series
- India chase 237 to beat Australia: first ODI – live!
- Email Geoff with your thoughts. Tweet @GeoffLemonSport
1st over: England 6-0 (Bairstow 5, Hales 0) Sheldon Cottrell begins with the ball, the slingy left-arm seamer who take five wickets in Bridgetown. He can’t get his radar right to begin with, first flicking Bairstow’s hip to avoid conceding a wide, then being glanced off a similar line for four. Ah, you can see why: his foot is slipping where it lands. Within the crease area at the bowler’s end there’s quite a thick thatch of grass, and his spikes aren’t gripping in it. The groundsman has to come out and do some running repairs, including scraping some grass and laying some sawdust. It was also notable that Oshane Thomas at fine leg wasn’t game to dive or slide in trying to save that boundary. Instead he tried to kick it back half-heartedly while overrunning it at full tilt. Don’t blame him too much: he was focused on having to hurdle a large advertising board just outside the rope, and given this ground is largely made of sand I think he was hesitant to slide in case he got a limb jammed in the surface.
Finally we get going again, though Cottrell bowls a wide despite the changes, and Thomas uses the boot again inside the circle at fine leg as Bairstow glances. That’s a very long first over – by my clock it took about nine minutes.
And we’re about to get underway. Does anyone else need anything? Here’s an email from Damien Clarke: “Could you please send up some bacon sandwiches (English mustard and ketchup), mixed olives, cashews (salted), and four bottles of chilled Newcastle Brown. Room 274, thank you.”
Ketchup and bacon is an abomination in the sight of God. I’m not convinced about mustard either. Luckily I can’t excommunicate you in person because you haven’t given me the name of your hotel. Rookie mistake.
Written by Geoff Lemon (now) and Tanya Aldred (later)
This news first appeared on https://www.theguardian.com/sport/live/2019/mar/02/west-indies-v-england-fifth-odi-live under the title “West Indies v England: fifth ODI – live!”. Bolchha Nepal is not responsible or affiliated towards the opinion expressed in this news article.
