England lost the fifth and final Twenty20 match of the series to the West Indies by four wickets at Trinidad. After being put in to bat, England struggled for fluency at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy and were bowled out for 132 off 19.3 overs.
Phil Salt, the opening batsman for England, won player of the series after scoring 331 runs in five games.
Under the direction of Buttler and head coach Matthew Mott, England will defend the T20 World Cup title that they won in Australia in 2022 by traveling back to the West Indies and the United States in 2024.
Since then, England’s results in white-ball have been erratic; the latter three months of 2023 were especially disappointing.
Their World Cup woes in India were widely reported, but the two series losses by the West Indies, who are ranked lower than England in both white-ball formats by the ICC, have raised even more questions.
It is possible that fatigue plays a role following such a busy 2023 that includes the World Cup and the Ashes, but‘ West Indies skipper Rovman Powell said on TNT Sports, “We will be better off for this experience. We are still a good bowling unit, but in the previous two games the guys just didn’t execute.” In the end, it was closer than we anticipated. We thought Shai Hope would be the main player on this pitch even though we continued losing crucial wickets.”
Jos Buttler, captain of England: “Because it was a used pitch, the circumstances were different from a few days previously. Most likely, we weren’t able to adjust rapidly enough.I considered 160 to be a respectable score to defend. We needed wickets in order to try to win the game, even if our bowling effort was excellent.”
The series’ MVP and England’s first player.
