Following his side’s painful loss to England in the second ODI, West Indies skipper Shai Hope said that the team needs to be more disciplined and not give easy chances to the opponents to score.
Hope’s fiery century, which brought him into the company of all-time West Indies legends, went in vain as a late blitz from Livingstone helped England chase down 329 against the hosts in the second ODI at Antigua to level the three-match series 1-1.
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After the match, Hope said in the post-match presentation that he thought it was a decent score his team made, since the outfield was heavy, the pitch was “up and down”. He also expressed happiness with his batters, particularly Kaecy Carty, Sherfane Rutherford and Shimron Hetmyer.
“It is irrelevant (his century), if it does not contribute to wins it does not matter. We need to be more disciplined, first game we showed that, we were a bit off today, we did not execute our plans well. We had clear plans but we did not execute them well today. We gave them a lot of easy options to score and when you play international cricket, the guys will capitalise and that’s what happened. The guys played really well, Keacy played really well, he has put a lot of work behind the scenes, Rutherford has got four 50s in a row now and Hettie (Shimron Hetmyer) with a nice cameo. Happy with the batters,” he said.
Coming to the match, WI was put to bat first by England, who chose to field first after winning the toss. After openers Brandon King and Evin Lewis were removed early, Carty (71 in 77 balls, with five fours and a six) and skipper Hope (117 in 127 balls, with eight fours and four sixes) put on a 143-run stand for the third wicket. Rutherford also scored a quickfire 54 in 36 balls, with four boundaries and three sixes and put on a 79-run stand with Hope.
Cameos from Hetmyer (24 in 11 balls, with three sixes), Roston Chase (20* in 22 balls, with two fours) and Matthew Forde (24* in 11 balls, with three sixes) took WI to 328/6 in their 50 overs.
John Turner (2/42) and Adil Rashid (2/62) were top bowlers for England. Livingstone and Jofra Archer got a wicket each.
In the run-chase of 329 runs, Salt (59 in 59 balls, with eight fours) held one end steady as England lost Will Jacks and Jordan Cox for poor scores. He put on a 44-run stand for the third wicket with Jacob Bethell, who made 55 in 57 balls, with four boundaries and two sixes.
Bethell and Livingstone also put a half-century stand.
However, it was a 140-run stand for the fifth wicket between Livingstone and Sam Curran that took England to a win with 15 balls left.
Livingstone smashed his maiden ODI ton, scoring 124* in 85 balls, with five fours and nine sixes and got a perfect partner in Curran at the other end, who made 52 in 52 balls, with three fours and a six. England secured a five-wicket win.
Livingstone’s heroics earned him the ‘Player of the Match’ award.
