England seal T20 series victory in West Indies as Jos Buttler’s side hold their nerve to claim tense three-wicket win

England recorded a first away-from-home Twenty20 series win since becoming world champions two years ago with another successful chase.

This latest win, by three wickets, was not nearly as easy as the previous two, despite the 146-run target being the smallest of all.

The dew in Barbados last weekend caused the ball to skip, but here it stayed stuck in the surface for longer, making Jos Buttler’s hat-trick with a correct toss less influential than it could have been.

Ultimately, it was the West Indies’ poor fielding that proved costly as Liam Livingstone was dropped three times during a crucial 39 – twice in single figures by wicketkeeper Nicholas Pooran and then again by Shimron Hetmyer on 21.

In a dramatic finale, Hetmyer also misjudged a boundary catch off Dan Mousley that scored six runs.

West Indies were marginally ahead when Will Jacks departed in the 11th over, with England 75 for four, but Sam Curran handled the pressure and eased it when, with 44 required off 31, he pumped the last ball of Gudakesh Motie’s spell for six.

Curran teamed up with Liam Livingstone to create a match-winning partnership

Rehan Ahmed (right) scored the winning runs as England won their first T20 series away from home in more than two years

Curran fell for a top score of 41 in the next over, costing Terrance Hinds as much as 14, but Livingstone brought his team within four runs of the line before holed out and Rehan Ahmed hit over backward point with four unused balls.

That England took an unassailable 3-0 lead and claimed a first away match since the 4-3 in Pakistan in the autumn of 2022 was mainly due to Saqib Mahmood’s excellent opening win of 3-0-15-3.

England themselves lost three early wickets, but it was the damage done early in the match that was lasting.

“As a bowling unit we had the mentality to take wickets, they are filled with batting all the way, but we didn’t hold back,” he said.

‘I used to feel like I was keeping someone else’s place warm. This was an opportunity to express myself.”

Prior to this series, his powerplay wickets for England had cost 98.5 runs each, but bowling on average almost two yards fuller than in the past has coincided with a sharp spike in his strike rate.

Here he credited Captain Buttler for two of his three scalps: his insistence on stopping the third man resulted in a miscue that saw Evan Lewis fall into the hands of the tumbling Jofra Archer, while seeing Hetmyer’s short-ball sensitivity beyond his eyeliner exploited perfectly.

In between, Roston Chase became the fourth victim in a 17-ball spell when he took a slip.

At that point the home side were in danger of imploding, but captain Roman Powell held firm, successfully knocking over a leg before settling on 35 and top-scoring for the second game in a row, this time with a 41-ball 54.

The majority of those runs came during a 73-run alliance with Romario Shepherd, but instead of starting from 110 for five after 15 overs, the West Indies fell away thanks to Jamie Overton’s career-best bowling in England.

Never before had he claimed more than one wicket in an international innings, but his clever substitutions deceived the two set batters plus Gudakesh Motie for a return of three for 20.

Saqib Mahmood took three wickets as England made a dominant start after winning the toss

Jamie Overton (left) also took three wickets for Jos Buttler’s men as England sealed a series victory with two matches to spare

The start was delayed 50 minutes due to a combination of spongy areas of the outfield that concerned umpires Leslie Reifer and Deighton Butler and a rain shower that coincided with the rescheduled coin toss time.

England’s acting head coach Marcus Trescothick could be seen pressing the soles of his boots into the dampest areas not long after the tourists arrived at Daren Sammy Stadium, and sand was spread on the boundary edge to keep the field players on their feet to keep.

Already responsible for greasy surfaces here in the Caribbean, Reece Topley flew home last night and will undergo scans of his right knee in London on Friday.

Topley has also suffered hamstring problems after slipping during his bowling match when rain fell in the first T20 in Barbados. It is the latest setback for the 30-year-old after a freak twist of his ankle on boundary pads sidelined him from the 2022 World Cup.