Andrew Strauss, the England captain, has said his team's batting wasn't 'smart' enough during Sunday's six-wicket defeat to West Indies. After getting off to a healthy start, England lost their last nine wickets for 66 runs to be shot out for their lowest Twenty20 score.
"Pretty obviously (we lost it) with the bat - you don't win too many Twenty20s having scored 121," Strauss said. "We lost wickets too regularly and we weren't smart enough with our batting on a pitch that held up a bit."
Strauss said England fell 30 runs short of a decent total. "It definitely wasn't an easy pitch on which to play your shots, but if we had just been a bit smarter and kept a few more wickets in hand then we probably would have got closer to that score."
The target of 122 was easily chased down by West Indies, guided by Ramnaresh Sarwan's 46-ball 59. Sarwan, England's tormentor in the Tests with 626 runs at 104.33, said West Indies must carry the momentum from the victories in the Test series and the Twenty20 to the upcoming one-dayers.
"You know how important momentum is in the shorter version of the game," he said. "Hopefully we can continue with it... we don't want to give England a sniff at anything, so it's important that we keep on playing the way we've been playing."
With captain and big-hitting opener Chris Gayle not playing, Denesh Ramdin, 24, was in charge of West Indies for the first time. Sarwan was impressed with the manner the home side coped with the loss of a key player and also with Ramdin's captaincy. "It's very difficult to replace Chris (Gayle) because obviously the way he plays and he's the captain as well," he said. "But I thought Denesh did well today, he was well supported by the rest of the guys in the team and it was really good to see."
The defeat on Sunday means England are still without a win all winter. Their next chance to pick up their first victory is on Friday when the one-day series gets under way in Guyana.