England beats West Indies 2-1 as Australia emerges IWC winner

England secured  a comfortable 112-run win in the opening match but went down by 42 runs in the second and  leapfrogged the West Indies and New Zealand to reach second place in the points table.

England started a point behind the West Indies at 19 points and go up to 23 points following the series.

The West Indies move up from 20 to 22 points with New Zealand at fourth place on 20 points.

England’s series win also means that table leader Australia emerged the first ever IWC winner since no one is in a position to overtake its tally of 30 points.

England, the West Indies and New Zealand have a strong chance of finishing in the top four with fifth-placed South Africa left to defeat Australia 3-0 to remain in contention since it has 17 points.

All five teams have played 18 matches each out of 21.

The top four teams from the IWC gain direct qualification for the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 while the bottom four will have to qualify through the ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier 2017 in Feb from which four teams will advance for the showpiece event in England and Wales from June 26 to July 23.

England captain Heather Knight was delighted after her team’s win in an away series.

“I’m really happy with how we have stood up and delivered a strong, winning performance in the final match of the series today. To come to the Caribbean and beat the ICC Women’s World T20 champions on their home patch, in tough conditions, and with a couple of setbacks along the way, shows how much character, desire and talent there is within this squad," she said

“Throughout the five matches, momentum has constantly shifted between the two sides, which shows how evenly matched the teams are.  It is a brilliant feeling to win the series decider today, and I know that we will all take a lot of belief and confidence from this experience,” Knight said.

England won the first match after fine knocks from Lauren Winfield (79) and Natalie Sciver (58) helped put up a total of 220 runs but the next match saw it lose the plot chasing a target of 224 due to five run outs.

“We are learning and growing as a squad all the time, and we are already looking forward to the next challenge of taking on Sri Lanka in Colombo next month. We are well-placed in the ICC Women’s Championship table, and hopefully we will put in some strong performances again out there to secure our place in the ICC Women’s World Cup next summer,” the England skipper said.  

West Indies captain Stafanie Taylor, who starred in her team’s only win with an innings of 85 and also came up with a fighting 57 in the final match on Wednesday, indicated that not everyone in her team had been taking enough responsibility.

“I don’t think we gave the fight we wanted to give, I don’t think we had the intention. With England coming here, we did not make our presence felt. As players we need to take a lot more responsibility for our actions, not leave it to one or two people,” said Taylor, who moved up two slots in the batter’s list to third position in the MRF Tyres ICC ODI Women’s Player Rankings.

The world’s top all-rounder, who also moved up two slots in the list for bowlers to reach second place, said her team’s batting had been a weak point in the series.

“We fell down a few times earlier, here too, batting first time we got 200 runs once. It’s poor, you want to dominate when you are playing at home. In the final match, if we had aimed for 190 we could have changed the game. It was a good batting pitch, it was just for us to apply ourselves,” she said in reference to the team total of 155 in the last match," she said

“We’re still in a decent position. We have one more series to go, so we are not counting ourselves out. Going forward, we have to pull it back, get some points. It’s going to be tough (playing India) in the sub-continent, nothing is quite easy out there. We have to dig deep to get points there,” she added.

Scores in brief:
1st ODI: England won by 112 runs
England 220 all out in 49.5 overs (Lauren Winfield 79, Natalie Sciver 58; Shaquana Qintyne 3-36, Hayley Matthews 2-20, Afy Fletcher 2-39, Deandra Dottin 2-45).
West Indies 108 all out in 35.4 overs (Jenny Gunn 2-8, Alex Hartley 2-25, Laura Marsh 2-31).

2nd ODI: West Indies won by 42 runs
West Indies 223-6 in 50 overs (Stafanie Taylor 85, Shaquana Quintyne 41, Merissa Aguilleira 32).
England 181 all out in 44.2 overs (Tammy Beaumont 57, Lauren Winfield 51, Heather Knight 36; Stafanie Taylor 3-22, Hayley Mathew 2-25).

3rd ODI: England won by five wickets
West Indies 155 all out in 47.1 overs (Stafanie Taylor 57, Alex Hartley 4-24, Katherine Brunt 3-35, Heather Knight 2-23).
England 158-5 in 38.5 overs (Natalie Sciver 58, Tammy Beaumont 34; Afy Fletcher 2-28).

Upcoming matches:

Sri Lanka v England: November 12, 15 and 17 (all in Colombo)

New Zealand v Pakistan: November 13, 17 and 19 (all in Nelson)

Australia v South Africa November 18, 20 and 23 (Canberra and Sydney)

Image: ICC Twitter page