St Lucia: After posting 418 for the loss of six wickets in the 4th ODI, England were bundled out for just 113 in the final and fifth ODI at St Lucia against the Windies. Eoin Morgan, the captain of England has said the poor batting performance was because the team failed to adapt.
“We did not adapt, it was a terrible batting performance, which is a disappointing way to end the series. We need to learn from the experience, the International Cricket Council(ICC) quoted Morgan as saying.
“It (the conditions) was evident from the first two overs. You could see it from the changing room. We did have that conversation. But we did not adapt. Trying to curb your natural ability, to try to go from high-risk to low-risk and still get a score in the morning that will be good enough in the afternoon, is difficult.”
England were handed a seven-wicket loss as in the chase of 114 runs, Chris Gayle went berserk as he scored a 27-ball knock of 77. As a result, the five-match series was tied at 2-2 with one match getting washed out.
Earlier, Windies bowler Oshane Thomas wreaked havoc on the English batsman as he took a five-wicket haul in just 5.1 overs.
England has been familiar with batting collapses, the batsman were just looking to hit out against Oshane Thomas which did not help the team’s cause.
“When we come up in conditions for the first time it has gone wrong, when we have come back in conditions that are similar to where we have made mistakes, we have actually played really well. It is easy to gloss over things like that because when we play well some of our guys make things look quite easy.”
“This was a surface that we rarely come up against. It was just the bounce. And I do not think we dealt and adapted with that. We continued to play as if we were on the same pitch in Grenada. A low-risk shot there was high-risk today.”
The team would now look to change their fortunes in the T20 series against the Windies.
England takes on Windies in the first T20I of the three-match series on March 6 at St. Lucia.
[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]