Lumb, Jordan earn consolation win

Cricket365
March 14, 2014

Michael Lumb and Chris Jordan stood at the fore of England's tight victory over the West Indies in Thursday's third and final Twenty20 International in Bridgetown, Barbados.

Opener Michael Lumb and all-rounder Chris Jordan stood at the fore of England's tight victory over the West Indies in Thursday's third and final Twenty20 International in Bridgetown, Barbados.

Despite surrendering the series to the home side two one, the match was a personal triumph for Jordan.

The Barbados-born Jordan smashed fellow all-rounder Dwayne Bravo for four sixes off the final over of the England innings to lift his team to 165 for six after they had lost six wickets for 40 runs following an opening stand of 98 between the hard-hitting Michael Lumb (63) and Alex Hales (38).

He then claimed three for 39 and took an outstanding catch on the boundary to dismiss Bravo, a magnificent effort that was enough to earn him the Man of the Match award in very familiar surroundings as West Indies were restricted to 160 for seven.

West Indies were indebted to the talented Lendl Simmons (69) and wicketkeeper-batsman Denesh Ramdin (33) in getting them back into the match after they had slumped to 67 for five in pursuit of that target of 166.

Seamer Jade Dernbach started the rout with the wicket of batsman Dwayne Smith off the first ball of the innings while Jordan removed the improving Johnson Charles and all-rounder Marlon Samuels.

They put on 73 for the sixth wicket before Jordan returned to get rid of Ramdin in the penultimate over. West Indies skipper Darren Sammy came to the crease with every expectation that he would have still been able to pull off a minor miracle with the bat, as he did in the series-clinching win two days earlier.

He struck two fours and a six almost immediately, but needing 17 off the final over bowled by Dernbach, the run out of Simmons along with the bowler's tactic of bowling wide of off-stump proved critical in the end.

West Indies had rested big-hitter Chris Gayle and specialist bowlers Ravi Rampaul and spinner Samuel Badree for the match with the series already in the bag. But it took nothing away from England's delight on finishing off the short campaign with a victory after having already taken the ODI series two-one.