England withstood all-rounder Hayley Matthews' brilliance to win the third and final T20 by 17 runs and complete a dominant series clean sweep in Charlotte Edwards and Nat Sciver-Brunt's first series in charge.
Matthews was playing a lone hand in West Indies' pursuit of 145 for a consolation win at Chelmsford, but a rain delay with 48 runs required from the last 26 balls disrupted the chase. They slipped from 109-3 to 127-8, with Lauren Bell claiming the game-changing wicket of Matthews for a sublime 71 from 54 balls in the 18th over.
Bell finished an exceptional spell with figures of 2-11 while there were also two wickets each for fellow quick Em Arlott and spinners Linsey Smith and Charlie Dean. Matthews claimed 3-32 in England's 144-5, leading West Indies' much-improved bowling performance, but former captain Heather Knight's unbeaten 66 from 47 balls ensured England just had enough runs on the board.
After Danni Wyatt-Hodge was bowled from the first ball of the innings by Zaida James' spin for the second match in a row and Sophia Dunkley was caught behind off Matthews for three, Knight and new captain Sciver-Brunt rebuilt the innings from a stuttering powerplay of 24-2. The experienced pair added 48 for the third wicket before Sciver-Brunt fell for 37, and Knight added a further 42 with wicketkeeper Amy Jones, who made a quickfire 22.
A three-match one-day international series begins in Derby on Friday, but England will be waiting on Knight's fitness after she could not take the field in the second innings because of a hamstring problem suffered during her knock. There was plenty of discussion and hope that losing the England captaincy would allow Knight more freedom as a batter, and in her first two knocks since, that has already come to fruition.
She made 43 not out in the first T20 at Canterbury, and was not required to bat in the second, before finishing strongly by reaching her first international T20 half-century on home soil from 38 balls. West Indies were rewarded for a much more consistent bowling effort, sticking to a simple plan of keeping the stumps in play and squeezing England's batters as much as possible with a little help from a surface which aided their spin-heavy attack.
It meant that Knight had to work through the gears, focusing on rotating the strike and picking the gaps in her partnership with Sciver-Brunt which came after England posted their second-lowest T20 powerplay score when batting first at home, with only two boundaries struck in the opening six overs. After Sciver-Brunt was caught on the boundary at the end of the 11th over, Jones' counter-attacking knock took the pressure off during the middle overs which allowed Knight to display more versatility, striking one enormous six over mid-wicket and producing an array of cheeky ramps and paddles off the spinners.
Her injury will be a concern as she struggled to run between the wickets in the final couple of overs, but it has been a highly promising return to the batting ranks. There are questions surrounding Wyatt-Hodge's form, however, with 17 runs in three innings having already been dropped from the ODI squad for this series.
The opener's 22 ducks are the most in men's and women's T20 internationals, and 11 of them have come first ball. The fact that Matthews was named player of the series and claimed two player of the match awards, and yet her side was unable to win a single game, perfectly summarises both her magnificent talent but the team's unsustainable reliance upon her.
Across the series, she has scored 177 runs in three innings including an unbeaten century in the first match, with Shabika Gajnabi's tally of 47 their next highest. West Indies' lack of batting depth came to the fore once again and their hopes in the longer format appear bleak unless Matthews continues to work miracles.
England captain Nat Sciver-Brunt, speaking to Sky Sports, said: "We played some brilliant cricket over this T20 series.
“We didn't have the perfect game today but we set the standards very high in the first two games of the series. With the way we started our innings, to get up to that score was really competitive.
“West Indies made it very difficult for us. Heather Knight batting like that was perfect to get us to a competitive total."
