Left Arm Around

England chased down a target of 48 with a staggering 101 balls to spare to thrash minnows Oman at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua.

This is now the largest victory in the history of the T20 World Cup in terms of balls remaining.

The Three Lions delivered a perfect response to their dismal display against arch rivals Australia on Saturday, first impressing with a stellar bowling performance.

Barbados-born Jofra Archer set the tone with two breakthroughs as he removed Pratik Athavale and Ilyas Sulehri, before the rapid pace of Mark Wood had Zeeshan Maqsood caught and bowled and Kashyap Prajapati easily caught at mid-wicket by Liam Livingstone.

Oman were never able to establish any meaningful partnerships after the powerplay as the wickets continued to tumble- Adil Rashid using his googly to bamboozle the Omani batters and finish with exceptional figures of 4/11 from four overs.

Both Archer and Wood ended with identical figures of 3/12, meanwhile the returning Reece Topley was wicketless from his three overs.

Only Shoaib Khan (11) was able to pass double-figures in Oman’s meagre batting effort.

Phil Salt wasted no time as he crunched the first two balls of England’s reply for six, both over cover, but left-armer Bilal Khan got his revenge as Salt chopped onto the stumps third ball.

Will Jacks departed soon after for just 5, however captain Jos Buttler was clearly determined to get the contest done and dusted when he crunched Khan for 22 off the third over; including 4 fours and a six.

It was then Jonny Bairstow’s role to finish the game a ball later as he pulled Fayyaz Butt behind square for four.

An astonishing triumph for England means their net run-rate (NRR) now leaps to 3.081 after three fixtures.

They know another victory against Namibia in Antigua on Saturday evening (18:00 BST) would put enormous pressure on local neighbours Scotland when they face Australia on Sunday in St Lucia.

Their current NRR of 2.164 means they will likely have to beat Australia should England defeat Namibia.