Jason Roy gives England platform to survive West Indies’ late surge

Just after the halfway point of their innings England, poised at a reasonable if not outstanding 64 for two, thrashed 24 runs off an over bowled by the spinner Fabian Allen. Even at the time it felt potentially decisive, but around an hour and a half later West Indies stood at a similar point in their reply, already nine runs and two wickets worse off, and needing a similar acceleration as England tossed the ball to a spinner of their own. Adil Rashid bowled a wicket maiden, Moeen Ali promptly took a couple more, and England were on their way to avenging their humiliating defeat in Saturday’s opener.

The contest was to be closer than anyone would at that point have predicted. Just as England’s victory appeared a formality Romario Shepherd and Akeal Hosein set about wrestling West Indies back into contention, bludgeoning nine sixes between them as the home side eventually fell short by a single run having ended their innings in such style that it is perhaps they, despite the defeat, who will go into the third game with greater momentum.

A high-scoring and in the end thrillingly close encounter could hardly have been more different to the first match of the series, surprisingly because at the start it looked almost the same: again West Indies won the toss and put England in while Eoin Morgan resisted the urge to make wholesale changes to a losing team – the substitution of Reece Topley for Tymal Mills was the only change to either side – and sagely noted before the start that “the challenge, similar to yesterday, is going to be adapting to conditions – but better”.

The most significant difference from Saturday’s opener was the pitch, just a few metres away but without the flecks of green that perhaps contributed to the