BRIS­TOL – Tom Ban­ton and Ja­cob Bethell pro­duced a sub­lime dis­play of pow­er hit­ting to help Eng­land seal a se­ries win­ning four-wick­et vic­to­ry over the West In­dies in the sec­ond T20I in Eng­land on Sun­day.

With Eng­land re­quir­ing 76 runs from 39 balls, the two bat­ters com­bined to blast 43 runs from two and a half overs to shift the mo­men­tum and car­ry their side past the West In­dies’ to­tal of 196 for six to fin­ish on 199 for six from 18.3 overs.

It gave Eng­land a 2-0 lead in the three-match se­ries with the fi­nal match to be played in Southamp­ton on Tues­day.

Apart from open­er Jamie Smith who made just four, the home side got sol­id con­tri­bu­tions from the oth­er top or­der bats­men, with Ben Duck­ett scor­ing 30 from 18 balls, Jos But­tler mak­ing 47 from 36 balls and cap­tain Har­ry Brook 34 from 20 balls.

But when Chase claimed the wick­et of Brook to leave Eng­land 126 for four in the 14th over, the re­quired run rate had climbed to close to 13 runs an over.

How­ev­er, new bats­man Ban­ton clob­bered the first ball he faced from Chase over mid­wick­et for six, and in the next over he hit spin­ner Gu­dakesh Motie for a four and a six off con­sec­u­tive de­liv­er­ies.

Bethell then got in on the act by hit­ting fast bowler Alzarri Joseph for three mas­sive six­es in the 16th over, and even though Joseph got his re­venge by hav­ing him caught off the last ball of the over for a whirl­wind 26 off 10 balls, Eng­land had brought the equa­tion down to 28 from 24 balls.

Ban­ton then bat­ted sen­si­bly to take Eng­land over the line, fin­ish­ing un­beat­en on 30 from 11 balls, be­fore Bry­don Carse end­ed the match with nine balls to spare by edg­ing Ja­son Hold­er to third man for four.

Joseph was the West In­dies’ best bowler with 2-45 from his four overs.

Ear­li­er, the vis­i­tors slammed 75 runs from their last five overs on their way to post­ing a for­mi­da­ble to­tal.

They start­ed hor­ri­bly when Evin Lewis was trapped lbw by pac­er Luke Wood with the first ball of the match.

John­son Charles and cap­tain Shai Hope then added 90 runs for the sec­ond wick­et in quick time, un­til Hope was stumped off the bowl­ing of Adil Rashid, one run short of a well-de­served half cen­tu­ry.

His dis­missal, which left the Windies 90 for two in the 11th over, led to a lost in mo­men­tum and when Sher­fane Ruther­ford and Charles, who made 47, were dis­missed short­ly af­ter, the vis­i­tors had stut­tered to 117 for four in the 16th over.

But Rov­man Pow­ell, who made 34 from 15 balls, hit spin­ner Liam Daw­son for a six and three fours in the 17th over that yield­ed 20 runs and then Rashid was belt­ed for five six­es in the 19th over by Ja­son Hold­er and Ro­mario Shep­herd that went for 31 runs.

Hold­er end­ed un­beat­en on 29 from nine balls, while Shep­herd scored 19 from 11.

Wood took 2-25 for the home side.

CMC

Brief Scores

WEST IN­DIES 196-6 in 20 overs (Shai Hope 49, John­son Charles 48, Rov­man Pow­ell 34, Ja­son Hold­er 29 not out, Ro­mario Shep­herd 19; Luke Wood 2-25).

ENG­LAND 199-6 in 18.3 overs (Jos But­tler 47, Har­ry Brook 34, Ben Duck­ett 30, Ja­cob Bethell 26, Tom Ban­ton 30 not out; Alzarri Joseph 2-49).

Eng­land won by four wick­ets.