St George's witnessed a remarkable encounter between West Indies and England. SAM MORSHEAD addresses some of the main talking points to come out of the game...
No, not a lost installment of the Bourne franchise but the selection dilemma facing England’s selectors in World Cup year.
Whenever one of the options at the top of the order seems to be out of nick or has to sit a game out through injury, his replacement comes in and makes a major impression.
In this case, it was Alex Hales. Without a bat for his country since October 20, the Nottinghamshire man came in for Jason Roy and slotted in seamlessly.
His explosive 82, made from 73 balls on a sluggish pitch and a slow outfield, is the sort of innings which will make him incredibly tough to drop should Roy be fit for the final ODI of the series in St Lucia this weekend.
Fine then, you might think, Bairstow will miss out. Sure, that might have made sense, especially given his relative lack of runs of late (no fifty in eight knocks), had the Yorkshireman not blasted a rapid half-century in the first eight overs; his first since June 21.
What message would it send for England to drop either Hales or Bairstow on Saturday? Yet how can they possibly tell Roy to carry the drinks?
It might be a nice headache to have, but it is still a headache.
Alex Hales accepts the crowd's applause
There was a brief window of time, around 18 months ago, where Eoin Morgan’s place in the England team came under scrutiny.
A run of meagre scores brought some to suggest that Morgan should not be assured of a spot in the team on his captaincy alone. Back then, given the one-day revolution Morgan had helped inspire alongside Trevor Bayliss, that idea seemed a little extreme. Now it would be positively ludicrous.
The skipper has six fifties and a century in his last nine ODI innings, during which time he has averaged 114.8. Perfect timing ahead of the World Cup?
For one reason or another, the groundstaff at St George’s brought in the ropes for this game.
At 58 and 62 metres square, it offered the likes of Gayle, Buttler and the rest ample opportunity to score big.
While it may have played into one or two of England’s 24 sixes, though, the heavyweight strokeplayers peppered the stands on a regular basis. Buttler even clobbered one 115m uberthwack onto the roof of a stand; that’s more than double the length of the 57m straight boundary at one end.
Stadiums, it seems, are becoming increasingly too small for these modern masters of the craft.
Jos Buttler in action
Regardless of his age, and regardless of whether he can bend to collect the ball in the field, Chris Gayle has proven in this series that he remains a threat to any limited-overs bowling line-up in the world.
His century here, off 55 deliveries, was his fastest in ODI cricket and the second-fastest ever scored against England in the format. For a while it put Windies on a collision course with an extraordinary victory.
And all this after his relative lethargy in the early stages of his two knocks in Barbados.
After 55 balls of his innings in the first match, he’d managed only 30, for example. Just imagine if he had started there like he started at St George’s.
The records kept tumbling.
Most sixes in an international series, the highest score by a West Indies batsman in a chase, 500 sixes in international cricket, 300 of the things in ODIs; any statsman trying to keep up with this performance could be excused for taking Thursday off to deal with the stress of it all.
Ultimately, it was not enough on its own to do the job for his country, but it was another timely reminder of the massive damage the self-styled Universe Boss can do, even if picking the milk off the bottom shelf is a bit of a struggle.
As good as England's batting has been in two of the three ODIs which have been played in this series, their bowling has been poor.
With the exception of Mark Wood, who with 4-60 in Grenada appeared to be playing on a different track to the rest of his teammates (according to CricViz data, Wood's success was down to bowling short with 60 per cent of his deliveries in that region of the strip), and at times Liam Plunkett this was another day where both seamers and spinners looked out of ideas.
Home conditions will play a major role come this summer's World Cup but England must surely pay more than a cursory glance to the number of runs conceded in the Caribbean.
Could a certain Jofra Archer benefit?
Chris Gayle marks his 500th international six
Four of England’s top five batsmen hit half-centuries for only the fifth time in ODI cricket… and the comparison to the first time the feat was achieved shows just how far the game has progressed since.
It was 1980 when Geoffrey Boycott, Graham Gooch, Bill Athey and Roland Butcher all managed fifties in a single innings against Australia at Edgbaston.
Unlike the cavalier quartet who put Windies to the sword at St George’s, only one of the batsmen 39 years ago managed a strike rate of better than a run a ball (Butcher, who hit at 136.84).
And, what’s more, England as a team could still compile just 320 for eight from their 55 overs on that occasion.
In Grenada on Wednesday, Buttler, Morgan and Co passed that mark in 43.
The good people of Grenada, not to mention England’s travelling fans, had waited patiently for three days to see some action after the third ODI had been called off without a ball being bowled.
They sat through hours of rain, saw more than their fair share of cover hokey-cokey and their only entertainment was a spontaneous karaoke version of Sweet Caroline. They deserved a game of cricket and then, just when they thought they were going to get it, the sightscreens stopped play.
It took more than five minutes for three members of the groundstaff to get the giant Sandals advert to turn to black.
Cricket is mighty good at shooting itself in the foot.
ENGLAND'S REMARKABLE INNINGS IN NUMBERS
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