BRIDGETOWN – Ca­reer-best bowl­ing per­for­mances from seam bowler Cher­ry Ann Fras­er and slow bowler Shen­ata Grim­mond gave West In­dies Women the as­cen­dan­cy, but the bat­ting fal­tered again leav­ing the home side short of the vic­to­ry tar­get, los­ing by 49 runs to Eng­land Women in the fourth Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­al on Sun­day.

Play­ing at the Kens­ing­ton Oval in Bar­ba­dos, the Eng­lish bat­ted first and post­ed 131-8, their low­est to­tal bat­ting first in the se­ries, af­ter win­ning the toss.

The first half of the match though be­longed to Fras­er who turned in a mag­nif­i­cent per­for­mance with the ball. Op­er­at­ing from the Joel Gar­ner End at the north, she was im­pres­sive in her first spell when she took three wick­ets in an over to rock Eng­land.

She first sent back Sophia Dunk­ley for 35 and two balls lat­er re­moved Ma­ia Bouch­i­er. Next ball she cap­tured the big wick­et of cap­tain Heather Knight for a “duck” as she edged to keep­er Rasha­da Williams to leave Eng­land reel­ing on 73-5 in the 11th over.

Fras­er end­ed with im­pres­sive fig­ures of 4-0-20-3 – the best of her ca­reer in her eighth match. Grim­mond, the off-spin­ner was equal­ly ef­fec­tive from the Mal­colm Mar­shall End and re­turned fig­ures of 4-0-33-3 – al­so the best of her ca­reer in her 13th ap­pear­ance.

Fras­er scythed through the mid­dle-or­der to leave Eng­land 86-7 at the end of the 14th over. This was the turn­ing point as Eng­land re­bound­ed and added 45 in the fi­nal stages, thanks to Kather­ine Brunt (24 not out) and Char­lie Dean (20).

The sec­ond half was head­lined by Eng­land’s im­pres­sive bowl­ing. Dean com­plet­ed a su­perb all-around match as she bowled with im­mac­u­late con­trol to cap­ture 2-16 to be named Play­er-of-the-Match. The tone was set by Lau­ren Bell with the new ball as she re­moved Aliyah Al­leyne and Williams in the first overs. Bell came back at the back end to fin­ish off the in­nings to close with 3-0-12-4, while left-arm spin­ner So­phie Ec­cle­stone took 2-13 off three overs.

The Windies’ chase once again fell short as on­ly cap­tain Hay­ley Matthews (23), She­maine Camp­belle (17) and Afy Fletch­er (14 not out) man­aged to reach dou­ble fig­ures as Eng­land need­ed just 16 overs to bowl out the hosts for 82.

West In­dies head coach Court­ney Walsh still had prais­es for his play­ers de­spite the loss.

“I thought re­strict­ing them to 131 was a pos­i­tive for us. We had a cou­ple in­juries dur­ing the match with Gajn­abi un­able to re­turn to bat and Camp­belle get­ting cut so we were ham­pered in that as­pect. The bowlers stood out to­day, they’re all show­ing but the con­sis­ten­cy we’re work­ing on.

 “Fras­er and Grim­mond lead with the ball to­day but Afy and Hay­ley have been the most con­sis­tent for the se­ries. We have one more game to play and we’re go­ing to re­group and come with one last push.”

West In­dies will have one last chance to get a  win in this se­ries as the two teams re­turn to Kens­ing­ton Oval for the fi­nal en­counter on Thurs­day night un­der the light. First ball is at 6 pm.

SCORES:

Eng­land Women 131/8 (20 overs) (Dunk­ley 35, Brunt 24 not out; Fras­er 3-20, Grim­mond 3-33) vs West In­dies Women 82 (Matthews 23; Bell 4-12, Ec­cle­stone 2-13, Dean 2-16).

Eng­land won by 49 runs.