Taha Hashim was at Chester-le-Street for us tonight; I’ll leave you with his report,Harry Brook’s verdict[On Liam Dawson] Unbelievable,To have him and Rash working from both ends, with a wealth of experience, really help,[On Jos Buttler] Yeah, unbelievable,To have him in this T20 team, batting in the top three… it’s an honour.

We had a tricky period through the middle overs with the bat, so that’s one learning, and then nail the back end with the yorkers.You have to take the opportunity to learn from every game.Shai Hope’s verdictWe didn’t bowl as well as we wanted in the Powerplay.I must commend the bowlers for pulling it back and giving us a chance.Every single ground is different and you have to adapt to the conditions.

We spoke about the dimension of the ground and the wind in our team meetings.The guys executed well through the middle overs and at the back end.A lot of teams like to throw spin at the West Indies.We have to get better, it’s that simple.Yeah it’s really pleasing to contribute to a good win.

I was a little bit nervous going into the game.When you get 190 on the board it simplifies everything – you can bowl defensively because you know they have to come to you.That’s what I did tonight and thankfully it worked.20th over: West Indies 167-9 (Holder 16) Matt Potts dots the Is and crosses the Ts on his home ground.Shepherd holes out to cow corner off the last ball, though by that stage Potts has the face on after being wided a couple of times and hit for 48 in his four overs.

No matter: England win by 21 runs.19th over: West Indies 152-8 (Shepherd 9, Holder 11) Shepherd top-edges Carse over the keeper’s head for four, then Holder flicks a boundary of his own to fine leg.The contest is done but you wouldn’t know it from the intensity with which Carse bowled that over.He finishes with figures of 4-0-29-0.18th over: West Indies 141-8 (Shepherd 4, Holder 5) 17th over: West Indies 133-8 (Shepherd 1, Holder 2) At one stage Bethell had figures of 0.

5-0-24-0.Now they look a whole lot better: 2-0-27-2.England probably won this match in the first six overs, when Smith and Buttler rampaged to 78 for 1.Once West Indies worked the pitch out they bowled pretty well; the horse, alas, had bolted.And that’s Blockbusters.

Jacob Bethell has cleaned up Andre Russell, who wiped across the line with feeling and was beaten by a ball that zipped straight on.16th over: West Indies 130-7 (Russell 17, Shepherd 0) Shepherd tries to sweep his first ball, misses and is hit on the arm.He was a long way forward, reviews straight away and is reprieved when technology shows the ball would have bounced over the top.Even so it’s a great finish from Rashid, whose last four balls are all dots.Russell yahoos Rashid for six, then miscues a lofted shot just short of Duckett.

They take the single to put Motie on strike; he’s beaten by a googly, a precious dot ball, and drives the next to long-off.West Indies need 59 from 26 balls.15th over: West Indies 124-6 (Russell 10, Motie 3) Russell heaves Carse into outer space and towards cow corner, where the diving Bethell can’t get a hand on an admittedly very difficult chance.Carse continues to hammer the middle of the pitch and keeps West Indies to eight from the over.The required rate of 13 remains manageable, but probably only while Russell is at the crease.

14th over: West Indies 116-6 (Russell 5, Motie 1) Liam Dawson completes a marvellous spell on his return to international cricket: 4-0-20-4.Pick those out!Who writes Liam Dawson’s scripts? After being hit for two boundaries by Powell, he responds with a quicker delivery that skids through to hit the stumps.Lovely bowling from Dawson, who has his first T20 international four-for.13th over: West Indies 107-5 (Powell 5, Russell 5) Even with the required rate around 11, Powell and Russell have the confidence and experience to take a few balls to get their eye in.The result is a boundaryless over from Rashid.

12th over: West Indies 101-5 (Powell 3, Russell 1) And now he has figures of 3-0-11-3.Welcome back.West Indies need 88 from 48 balls.And another! Chase reaches for a slower, wider delivery and clunks it straight to Duckett at long-off.Dawson, playing his first game since 2022, has figures of 2.

3-0-10-3.The Liam Dawson Fan Club are having their best night out in years.He has dismissed the dangerous Sherfane Rutherford, who mistimed a big shot towards long on and was well caught on the run by Duckett.11th over: West Indies 97-3 (Chase 22, Rutherford 2) Chase tries to reverse sweep a googly from Rashid that beats everyone and runs away for two runs; it would have been four but for a fine sprawling stop from Duckett.10th over: West Indies 91-3 (Chase 20, Rutherford 0) So, that over.

Before the wicket there were three wides, a four for each batter and two punishing sixes over long-on from Lewis,The wicket made it… if not quite all worthwhile, then at least less painful than it could have been,A nightmare first over for Jacob Bethell costs 24 but ends on a high when Brydon Carse takes a terrific running catch at deep midwicket to get rid of Evin Lewis,9th over: West Indies 67-2 (Lewis 23, Chase 15) Lewis takes 10 from the first two balls of Potts’ over, a six behind square on the leg side followed by a steer to third man,Potts recovers well, conceding only three more from the remainder, but it’s still a good over for West Indies.

It feels like it’s about to start raining sixes in Durham.8th over: West Indies 54-2 (Lewis 12, Chase 14) Chase gets in a real tangle against Jacks on a couple of occasions.He manages one pull round the corner for four, but seven from the over isn’t enough for West Indies.They need 135 from 72 balls.7th over: West Indies 47-2 (Lewis 11, Chase 8) Pull up a pew, pour a whisky or non-alcoholic alternative: Adil Rashid is coming on to bowl.

He beats Lewis with successive googlies, the second a deliciously flight delivery, and then beats Chase’s attempted reverse pull.England appealed for caught behind against Chase, thinking he’d gloved it, but Harry Brook rightly decided not to risk the last review.Meanwhile, Tom Hopkins is back, and he’s taking no nonsense.“Can confirm that neither Tom Van der Gucht nor Matt Dony have ever been to Boundary Park.”Just reading your email has pushed my body temperature below 35 degrees.

Imagine playing against that great early-1990s Oldham team on a plastic pitch in the middle of winter.Ian Marshall used to look at an opponent and instruct the other Oldham players to “introduce him to the plastic”.6th over: West Indies 44-2 (Lewis 10, Chase 7) Roston Chase BANG-ETH!s his first ball over midwicket for six.It’s a no-ball, too, because England had three behind square on the leg side, an error that Chase must have spotted to play a shot like that.In theory England can’t change their field for the free hit – but, as Nasser Hussain points out on Sky, if they do that it’ll be another no-ball and Potts will be trapped in Groundhog Over.

The actual over still takes a fair while, with two wides making it a nine-ball affair.Matt Potts strikes with his second ball in T20 internationals.Shai Hope clothed a back-of-a-length delivery towards mid-on, where Duckett took a comfortable running catch.That’s an important wicket because Hope is the kind of player who can anchor a chase with 90-odd not from 60 balls.5th over: West Indies 32-1 (Lewis 8, Hope 3) An odd little incident.

Hope makes room to flay a short ball from Carse over the off side and misses, but England are convinced the ball has brushed the top edge on its way to Buttler.Brook reviews, only for nothing to show up on UltraEdge.There was a noise, which England thought was an edge; the commentators reckon it was something to do with Hope’s helmet.Either way, he didn’t hit the ball.4th over: West Indies 30-1 (Lewis 7, Hope 2) It’s been a lovely start for Liam Dawson, who has figures of 2-0-7-1 in a runfest.

“As is so often the case, Naylor speaks sense,” says Tom Hopkins.“ In simpler times, you could safely assume an England captain’s time would end with a Test series against South Africa (if memory serves, Graeme Smith took out about five of them singled handed).Now, like everything else in the world it’s got so darned complicated.”The pedant that is squatting in my subconscious, a malignant and largely unwelcome presence, would like me to tell you that it was a bit more complicated back in the day, and that Nasser and Strauss resigned as white-ball captain before Smith finished them off good and proper.Liam Dawson’s back, baby! After darting his first seven deliveries into the pitch, he tosses one right up to hoodwink Johnson Charles, who charges down the pitch, misses and keeps walking.

Lovely bowling.3rd over: West Indies 27-0 (Lewis 6, Charles 18) More new-ball spin, this time from Will Jacks.Charles makes room to crash a superb boundary past extra cover, then Lewis pounds another over wide mid-off.Bethell made a superb diving on the boundary but the ball rolled slowly against the toblerone.“We all feel Tom Van der Gucht’s pain,” shivers Matt Dony.

“We’re all sports fans.There is a special kind of cold that only exists in a stadium.The coldest I’ve ever been was a meaningless Ospreys European match.Can’t even remember the opponents.But I do remember a chill that I couldn’t put into words, reaching parts of me I didn’t know existed.

Keeping the philosophy thread, Nietzsche thought that cold weather makes people stronger.That’s why us South Wales folk are so tough.We are! Honest!”Still enjoying that Nick Drake album, tough guy?2nd over: West Indies 15-0 (Lewis 1, Charles 13) Brydon Carse, on his home ground and with a full complement of toes, shares the new ball.That’s a thankless task against openers as good as Johnson Charles, who pulls round the corner for four and then six.Eleven from the over, which in the circumstances feels like a decent effort.

“In the last commentary I heard Ian Bishop lovingly elongate the vowels in the word ‘aberration’,” says Ian Copestake, “and it made me want to live long enough to hear him use the word ‘insouciance’.”1st over: West Indies 4-0 (Lewis 1, Charles 3) Dawson starts around the wicket to the left-handed Evin Lewis, with a leg slip in place.He drives it into the pitch from the start, an effective tactic that brings four dot balls in the first five deliveries.Charles gets off the mark by heaving the sixth behind square for three.“There really should be an ex-captains’ club (well, WhatsApp group) that’s charged with identifying when it’s all becoming too much and offering the incumbent the bottle of brandy and revolver,” says Gary Naylor.

“Just think of the benefits,No more tearful pressers from captains suddenly looking ten years older, form barely dipping across a career and no more quadrennial handwringing over The Future Of English Cricket,”The players are back on the field,Looks like the returning Liam Dawson will open the bowling,