Washed-out England swept away by Windies and rain

ENGLAND captain Paul Collingwood blamed the rain after seeing his side dumped out of the World Twenty20 in a nail-biting five-wicket loss to the West Indies.
 

The hosts made 161-6 from their 20 overs but an evening downpour at The Oval saw the Windies set a revised target of 80 from nine overs, under the Duckworth/Lewis method, to reach the semi-finals. 
 

And despite moving to within sight of victory by reducing their opponents to 45-5, England lost with four balls to spare when Ramnaresh Sarwan hit a four to cap a match-winning partnership of 37 from 20 deliveries with Shivnarine Chanderpaul.
 

Collingwood said: “When you’re trying to defend a target like that, obviously they’ve got 10 wickets in nine overs. In a 20-over game we would have had a better chance. The bowlers have been fantastic but it was always going to be difficult.”
 

This defeat at the Super Eights stage typified a wildly mixed England performance at the tournament, which featured impressive wins but also humbling losses. For the West Indies the triumph was sweet revenge for a Test and one-day series hammering from England in recent weeks.
 

“I’m so emotional about this victory for the guys with the efforts they put in,” said captain Chris Gayle. “In nine overs, anything could have happened. We’ve been written off so it’s good to be in the semi-finals.” 
 

England left the Windies needing 29 from the final three overs after James Anderson, Ryan Sidebottom and Stuart Broad removed Andre Fletcher, Gayle and Lendl Simmons within the first 13 balls. 
 

But the experienced Sarwan and Chanderpaul refused to panic, the former hitting 19 from nine deliveries in a man-of-the-match performance. Earlier England had failed to maintain a strong start to their innings in which Ravi Bopara made 51 and Kevin Pietersen a quickfire 31, before his attempted slog-sweep off Simmons found Fletcher in the deep.

GROUP E
TEAM            PLD            W            L            T            RR            PTS
South Africa   2                 2            0           0             0.9             4
West Indies   3                 2           1           0            0.0            6 4
England         3                1           2            0           -0.41          2
India              2                0           2            0           -0.42          0 

GROUP F
TEAM            PLD            W            L            T            RR            PTS