By Clayton Goodwin
West Indies 282 (Kraigg Brathwaite 61, Jason Holder 59, Gus Atkinson 4-67) & 175 (Mikyle Louis 57, Kavem Hodge 55, Mark Wood 5-40 lost to England 376 (Jamie Smith 95, Joe Root 87, Chris Woakes 62, Ben Stokes 54, Alzarri Joseph 4-122) & 87-0 (Ben Stokes 57 n.o.) by 10 wickets
The third day crowd may have seen little cricket quantitively – but what they did see was of the highest quality. The morning session was well contested, but after the lunch-interval West Indies were hit by the double whirlwind of superlative fast bowling from Mark Wood and a boundary-blitz by Ben Stokes. England won by 10 wickets to triumph 3-0 in the series. West Indies would be disappointed by their performance, but, in all honesty, they ran into an excellent England side which would have been a severe test for even the toughest teams.
Although they lost Alick Athenaze by an early l.b.w to Shoaib Bashir, West Indies fought sternly and competently, soon wiping off the deficit. For a while Mikyle Louis and Kavem Hodge seemed to be in charge of the situation. When he had just reached his fifty, however, Louis edged Ben Stokes to be caught by Zak Crawley. The fieldsman dropped a similar offering from Jason Holder soon afterwards, but the tall Barbadian was then l.b.w to Gus Atkinson. Now more subdued, Hodge batted with Joshua Da Silva in taking West Indies to 151-5 by the lunch-break – a lead of 57 runs. It could have been a challenging total if the tourists had not let the game run away from them in the later stages of the previous day.
After lunch West Indies ran into what was possibly the greatest spell of fast bowling I have ever seen – on screen or in the flesh. Mark Wood punched a hole in the innings, and he kept punching. Da Silva played over an in-swinger and was l.b.w., Alzarri Joseph had his stumps blasted out of the ground. Then in an outstanding over Wood had Hodge caught at the wicket, did the same for Jayden Seales, and had Shamar Joseph caught by Harry Brook. West Indies, all out for 175, set England 82 runs to win.
Ben Stokes, going in first in the absence of the injured Crawley, launched an immediate attack on the fast bowlers, and with Ben Duckett hit off the required runs from just deliveries. The England captain hit 9 fours and 2 sixes as hiss team raced to victory by 10 wickets