Chris Gayle poses with Oshane Thomas after the 5th ODI against England
A clinical effort by the hosts saw veteran batsman Chris Gayle and Oshane Thomas as the standout performers of the day as their individual performances gave the No.1 ODI team a run for their money on Saturday.
Gayle struck a brutal 77 as West Indies crushed England to win the fifth and final one-day international by seven wickets to clinch a 2-2 draw in the series on Saturday.
The home team won the toss, electing to field first on a bouncy wicket, and Oshane Thomas proved the star of the bowling show. The paceman took a career-best 5/21 as England was skittled out for 113 in only 28.1 overs, with Jos Buttler and Alex Hales joint top-scoring with 23 apiece.
The tourists lost their last five wickets for two runs as they collapsed to their lowest 50-over total against West Indies.
West Indies then rushed to its target in just 12.1 overs with veteran opener Gayle lashing nine sixes and five fours in a swashbuckling 27-ball innings.
The third match of the series was abandoned as a draw without a ball being bowled.
Here's what the Man of the Series had to say about his innings.
Chris Gayle - Man of the Series at age 39, come on youngsters what's happening (laughs). It's a fantastic series. To be able to tie the series 2-2, both teams played well. Today our bowlers were fantastic. Oshane with his first five-wicket haul, Carlos was brilliant. And the captain and Cottrell as well. Sometimes as a batter you're weary of small totals. So as I was padding up, I thought about putting them under pressure early. Sometimes you've got to change it up a bit, because the bowlers would work you out otherwise. Mark Wood was brilliant for them. He bowled fast and was a wicket-taker for them in this series. At one stage I thought is this going to be my last innings for Windies in the Caribbean. Another good turnout today. We will get a bit of respect going into the World Cup. If we get it right as a unit, we can create some damage in the World Cup. We're very capable of winning games in England.
England captain Eoin Morgan - We struggled throughout the whole innings with the bat. The extra bounce here is not something which we come up against much. It's difficult to curb what's been your natural reaction for a couple of weeks. But we need to adapt better. You do have to rock up on any given day. We've done it on slow, low and turning wickets. But we're yet to do it on wickets like these. We've competed well throughtout, haven't been at our absolute best in this series. Support around the Caribbean has been awesome. Certainly have a lot of positives to take from the series.
The Windies will now hope to expose their strenght and that is in the upcoming thee-match T20I series against England, which begins March 5 in St. Lucia.
(With AP Inputs)
