BRIDGETOWN – Eng­land skip­per Jos But­tler sig­nalled his re­turn from in­jury with a scin­til­lat­ing half-cen­tu­ry and an­oth­er in­ept bat­ting per­for­mance by the West In­dies saw them slump to a sec­ond heavy de­feat, this time by sev­en wick­ets in the sec­ond T20I in Bar­ba­dos on Sun­day.

For the sec­ond suc­ces­sive match, the home side’s top or­der failed to fire and they were lim­it­ed to a be­low par 158 for eight from their 20 overs.

But­tler, play­ing in on­ly his sec­ond T20I af­ter a four-month long lay­off due to a calf in­jury, then hit a su­perb 83 from just 45 balls as Eng­land romped to 161 for three with 31 balls re­main­ing.

The win gave Eng­land a com­mand­ing 2-0 lead in the best-of-five se­ries and put them in prime po­si­tion to hand the West In­dies their first home T2o se­ries loss since 2023.

Once again, the West In­dies were out­done by an im­pres­sive dis­play of fast bowl­ing by Saqib Mah­mood and Jofra Archer af­ter los­ing the toss and be­ing sent in to bat for the sec­ond straight day.

With the new pitch pro­vid­ing ob­vi­ous as­sis­tance to the pac­ers, King’s ex­trav­a­gant dri­ve off Mah­mood’s sec­ond ball of the in­nings found a thick edge and bal­looned in the air for Liam Liv­ing­stone to take a good catch run­ning back­wards at mid­off, to be out for one.

Archer had made life un­easy for Lewis with his sharp bounce and outswingers, and he even­tu­al­ly reaped the div­i­dends when the bats­man gloved a sharp, ris­ing de­liv­ery be­hind to the wick­et­keep­er, to leave the Windies 20 for two in the third over.

Ros­ton Chase ex­e­cut­ed two glo­ri­ous dri­ves through the off­side, but then missed an in­swinger from Mah­mood and was ad­judged lbw for 13, with the re­view con­firm­ing the de­ci­sion, as the West In­dies lost their third wick­et in­side the pow­er play to be 35 for three in the fourth over.

Nicholas Pooran and cap­tain Rov­man Pow­ell tried to con­sol­i­date dur­ing a 35-run part­ner­ship for the fourth wick­et that re­quired sev­en overs.

But af­ter strug­gling to 14 from 23 balls, Pooran was de­ceived in flight from a de­liv­ery by Liv­ing­stone as he ad­vanced down the wick­et and was stumped by Phil Salt.

Sher­fane Ruther­ford once again fell to off-spin, this time miss­ing an at­tempt­ed sweep off Liv­ing­stone af­ter scor­ing a soli­tary run, as the West In­dies slumped to 80 for five.

Pow­ell played an un­char­ac­ter­is­ti­cal­ly pa­tient in­nings as he tried to stem the flow of wick­ets.

He showed signs of his pow­er hit­ting by clob­ber­ing spin­ner Adil Rashid for a six and a four in the 15th over that went for 16 runs, but just as he was look­ing to ac­cel­er­ate, he was de­ceived by a faster de­liv­ery from spin­ner Dan Mous­ley and bowled for the top­score of 43 from 41 balls.

On­ly Ro­mario Shep­herd, who stroked 22 from 12 balls and Matthew Forde, who struck three fours in scor­ing an un­beat­en 13 from six balls, were able to gath­er any re­al re­sis­tance there­after, with Mah­mood, Liv­ing­stone and Mous­ley all tak­ing two wick­ets apiece.

The West In­dies reaped im­me­di­ate suc­cess in the field, when Sat­ur­day’s cen­tu­ri­on Phil Salt was caught by a jug­gling Bran­don King at ex­tra cov­er off the first de­liv­ery of the in­nings bowled by spin­ner Akeal Ho­sein.

Their ex­cite­ment was short lived, how­ev­er, as But­tler and Will Jacks ef­fec­tive­ly end­ed the con­test with a 129-run part­ner­ship that re­quired just 12 overs.

But­tler start­ed slow­ly, scor­ing on­ly three runs from his first 10 de­liv­er­ies, but af­ter hit­ting pac­er Matthew Forde for suc­ces­sive bound­aries in the fourth over, he hit the ac­cel­er­a­tor.

He creamed Ro­mario Shep­herd for a six and two fours in the sixth over that costs 21 runs, and then turned his sights on spin­ner Gu­dakesh Motie, blud­geon­ing him for a four and a mas­sive six out of the ground that led to a ball change.

But­tler then brought up his 50 off 32 balls by launch­ing off-spin­ner Ros­ton Chase over deep mid­wick­et for an­oth­er six, as Eng­land rock­et­ed to 94 for one af­ter 10 overs.

To­geth­er with Jacks, they com­bined to give debu­tant Ter­rance Hinds a rough ini­ti­a­tion by blast­ing him for 15 runs in his first over, be­fore smash­ing Chase’s next over for 18 runs.

The West In­dies got two com­pli­men­ta­ry wick­ets when Shep­herd had Jacks caught for 38 off 29 balls and But­tler caught by Pow­ell try­ing to clear the bound­ary to make it 130 for three in the 13th over.

But it was much too late and Liv­ing­stone hit a quick­fire 23 from 11 balls to seal the deal.

The third T20I is on Thurs­day in St Lu­cia.

Sum­marised Scores:

WEST IN­DIES 158-8 in 20 overs (Rov­man Pow­ell 43, Ro­mario Shep­herd 22, Nicholas Pooran 14, Ros­ton Chase 13, Matthew Forde 13 not out; Liam Liv­ing­stone 2-16, Saqib Mah­mood 2-20, Dan Mous­ley 2-29).

ENG­LAND 161-3 in 14.5 overs (Jos But­tler 83, Will Jacks 38, Liam Liv­ing­stone 23 not out; Ro­mario Shep­herd 2-42).

Eng­land won by sev­en wick­ets.

CMC