England captain Jos Buttler is happy with the performance against West Indies and talks about the gameplans for the match.

England make solid statement by thumping West Indies by 8 wickets on Thursday (20th June) at St Lucia in the Super Eight match of the ICC T20 World Cup 2024. Phil Salt's swashbuckling 87* off 47 balls and Jonny Bairstow's blistering 48* off 26 deliveries motored England to their target of 181. Before that, Powell and Sherfane Rutherford's quick-fire cameos aided West Indies post 180 on the board.

“That was a really good performance. We were practicing well, executed well today. We bowled well to restrict a powerful batting line up. We were smart with the bat, the guys were calculative,” Buttler said.

West Indies scored just 43 runs in their last 5 overs. Jofra Archer came in the 16^th over and conceded just 4 runs while getting the important wicket of set and in form batter Nicholas Pooran. In the very next over, Adil Rashid came and dismissed dangerous Andre Russell. He conceded just 2 runs in that over. Buttler praises Archer and Rashid highly.

“That's why we brought Jof [Archer] back there with Pooran and Russell in. We wanted to use him to get a wicket or restrict them and make the back five really difficult. Rashid has been all the time. He is our most important player. Has so much variations and restricts runs,” Buttler added.

In the chase, England were under pressure in the middle-overs as they needed 70 runs in the last 7 overs. But Salt and Bairstow made an unbeaten match-winning 97-run partnership to win the match for England. Bairstow had not been in good form in the tournament as he scored 7, 8* and 31 runs in the previous three matches. But he contributed highly in the important match against West Indies.

“Bairstow-Salt partnership was very good. Jonny took the game deep and Salty broke it with that one over. Jonny batted at No. 4 today, class player for a really long time. You keep backing class players. Incredible, mature, senior player's innings,” Buttler concluded.

England will face South Africa in their next match on June 21.