England could scarcely have wished for a better outcome from part one of the push to keep their T20 World Cup defence alive, not simply beating Oman but crucially massaging their net run-rate like it was a prized Wagyu cow.
It took an hour and 42 minutes for Jos Buttler’s men to complete the job at hand, a hard, bouncy pitch – and victory at the toss – having set the stage for a full-blown annihilation of their opposition. After Oman were skittled for 47 in 13.2 overs, the batters then opened up the possibility of sundowners on one of Antigua’s 365 beaches by knocking off the target, two down, in just 19 balls.
More important than those refreshments, one assumes, was the effect this quick kill had on the net run-rate column. England had begun their penultimate Group B match on minus 1.8, with Scotland, the only side that can keep them out of the top two, on 2.16. As Jonny Bairstow pulled Fayyaz Butt to fine leg to seal the win, England had leapfrogged this figure to reach a far healthier 3.01.
There is still more work for Buttler and Co, not least repeating the dose against Namibia on Saturday. Do so and in all likelihood, only a shock victory for Scotland over Australia in St Lucia later that day would render this number-crunching irrelevant. As such, a title defence that stumbled out of the blocks – both the washout with Scotland and the 36-run defeat to Australia – is finally up and running.
This was a bit of an ordeal for Oman, all told. Already out of contention for the Super Eight phase themselves, the associates faced an England attack augmented by a recall for Reece Topley – Chris Jordan the player to miss out – and in no mood to muck about. Bar the odd sliced boundary and a sloppy dropped catch at slip early on by Moeen Ali, this was one-way traffic on an island that sees very little.
Topley went wicketless in his three overs but his height and assistance from the breeze – plus the odd one that held its line – made him a handful. Instead, it was the dual pace of Jofra Archer and Mark Wood that blew Oman away, the pair going on to return identical figures of three for 12 with some fast-twitch blood and thunder.
While Archer continued the frictionless form shown during this latest comeback from injury, Wood’s spirits will have been significantly lifted. He was too simply hot to handle here, inducing two soft catches – including back one to himself – and leaving Oman six down inside eight overs when Ayan Khan chopped on.
But perhaps most heartening for Buttler, even factoring in the standard of opposition, was the player of the match performance from Adil Rashid. Slightly wayward in Bridgetown, perhaps due to a lack of warm-up cricket, he utterly purred throughout his four overs here. Outfoxing Khalid Kail first ball, stumped at the second attempt by Buttler off a sharp leg-break, Rashid finished with four for 11.
Much like Adam Zampa against Namibia on the same ground two nights earlier, the white Kookaburra was on a string for the leg-spinner here. Rashid made good use of the breeze on offer and deployed that trademark googly to devastating effect, tailenders Kaleemullah and Fayyaz both hearing the dreaded death rattle this way.
“It’s always nice when you see your first one spin,” said Rashid. “And when you get a wicket first ball, it sets the tone. It was spinning quite a bit, so I was going wider with the wrong ’un and sliders to set them up that way. One game at a time, we’ve got Namibia next, our job is to go out there and do our thing.”
The run chase? Well, it was utterly vaporised. England needed to get there in 32 balls or fewer to overtake Scotland’s net run-rate and this looked eminently possible when Phil Salt crashed Bilal Khan’s first two deliveries over the rope. Bowled by the third via an inside edge, Salt walked off with a mildly absurd 12 off three balls.
Will Jacks similarly perished attempting to target the grass banks but these two wickets were little more than dot balls, Buttler breaking the back of the chase when he smoked Bilal’s second over for 22 runs and Bairstow applying the coup de grace. England, slightly blue after that gut-punch from Australia, are breathing again.
