CARDIFF – West In­dies bats­man Kea­cy Car­ty cred­its his re­cent pur­ple patch to metic­u­lous prepa­ra­tion af­ter notch­ing his third cen­tu­ry in four match­es.

Still, his hero­ics were over­shad­owed by Joe Root’s sub­lime un­beat­en 166, which guid­ed Eng­land to a thrilling three-wick­et win over the West In­dies in Eng­land on Sun­day.

The vic­to­ry se­cured an unas­sail­able 2-0 lead for the hosts in the three-match ODI se­ries.

Opt­ing to bat first, the West In­dies post­ed a com­pet­i­tive 308 all out in 47.4 overs, with Car­ty’s 103 off 105 balls an­chor­ing the in­nings.

Af­ter an ear­ly wob­ble at 6-1, the 26-year-old re­built the in­nings in a cru­cial 141-run sec­ond-wick­et part­ner­ship with Bran­don King, who scored 59.

Car­ty al­so added 58 runs for the third wick­et with skip­per Shai Hope, who con­tributed a flu­ent 78 off 66 de­liv­er­ies.

For Car­ty, the ex­tra pre-match work has been pay­ing off, and he hopes he can main­tain the same work eth­ic.

“I’ve been fo­cus­ing on the ar­eas the coach­ing staff high­light­ed for me to im­prove, en­sur­ing I can per­form con­sis­tent­ly at the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el,” Car­ty said.

De­spite the Windies’ fight­ing to­tal, Root’s cen­tu­ry sealed the chase with sev­en balls to spare. The vis­i­tors now turn their at­ten­tion to the fi­nal ODI, aim­ing to end the se­ries on a high, as Car­ty be­lieves a bit more ef­fort could see them com­ing away with a con­so­la­tion win.

“We pushed Eng­land hard and took the game deep, and if we can add an­oth­er 20-40 runs and main­tain that in­ten­si­ty, we can fin­ish strong­ly.”

In the mean­time, Sher­fane Ruther­ford has been added to the West In­dies squad for the fi­nal game of the se­ries on Tues­day at the Oval. Ruther­ford ar­rived in Lon­don on Sun­day fol­low­ing his stint in the IPL.

CMC