(Sky Sports) England were handed a 10-wicket hammering by the West Indies early on day four of the third Test in Grenada to go five-Test series without victory.
The tourists, resuming on 103-8 and with just a 10-run lead, held on for 11.2 overs before being bowled out for 120, leaving the West Indies a routine run-chase of 28 – their openers firing them to the target in 29 balls.
England’s defeat completes a miserable run of results in which they have only a solitary Test win to show from their last 17 matches stretching back to February 2021.
England’s last-wicket pair of Jack Leach and Saqib Mahmood had heroically added 90 runs in the first innings, but a repeat performance from the tail on the fourth morning was always unlikely, and so it proved even though the pitch didn’t offer quite as much for the bowlers as it had the day before when the England top-order subsided.
The West Indies’ Saturday superstar Kyle Mayers couldn’t add to his five-wicket haul, and looked much more harmless medium-pacer than the metronomic nightmare of the night before; it was the introduction of Kemar Roach (2-10) that ultimately ended England’s futile resistance.
Roach struck first ball, albeit with a bit of a wayward loosener angled down leg that Chris Woakes (19) met with pretty much the middle of the bat, only for Jason Holder to pull off a sensational diving catch at leg slip.
Woakes had survived a scare a couple of overs prior, given out on 18 caught at short-leg off Alzarri Joseph, but he immediately reviewed and the decision was overturned with no edge shown as he looked to work one away off his hip.
Woakes couldn’t cash in on the reprieve, and with him back in the hutch, Leach (4) nicked off in Roach’s next over to end the innings. Initially not given on the field, DRS again overturned the decision to end the England innings.
Kraigg Brathwaite (20no) and John Campbell (6no) then quickly and calmly knocked off the required runs for the West Indies to see them clinch a memorable series win a lift the new Richards-Botham Trophy.
