Adil Rashid bowled one of the the most impressive bowling spells in the history of the T20 International as England comprehensively defeated West Indies in their opening World Cup encounter in Dubai.
Rashid finished with a bowling spell of 4-2 in 2.2 overs. Moeen Ali and Tymal Mills shared two wickets each.
West Indies were bowled out for just 55 runs in 13.5 overs with Chris Gayle (13) being the only batsman to reach double-figure.
England had little hiccups in their run-chase but achieved the target by losing four wickets with 11.4 overs to over. Akeal Hosein was the most effective West Indian bowler, finishing with a figure of 2-24 in his quota of four overs.
Moeen Ali adjudged Man Of The Match for picking up two wickets and taking a splendid catch.
Reacting to his side’s win, Rashid said after the match, “There were some nerves flying around, but we’ve prepared well and we were confident in our abilities and today was the perfect start.”
In the 2016 T20 World Cup final, West Indies had defeated England to win the coveted trophy.
In an earlier match, Australia managed to defeat South Africa by five wickets in a low scoring match.
Batting first, South Africa made 118-9 in 20 overs with Aiden Makram emerging as the top scorer. Makram made 40 in 36 balls. The rest of the South African batsmen simply failed to rise to the occasion. Such was the poor performance by South African batsmen that bowler Kagiso Rabada was the second highest scorer with 19 runs.
Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Adam Zampa shared two wickets each for Australia.
Austra’s run-chase was not that impressive as they kept losing wickets at a regular interval. However, Marcus Stoinis, who was dropped by Anrich Nortje, guided Australia to a 5-wicket win in the last over of the match. Steve Smith was the top scorer with 35 runs for Australia.