England suffered a surprise defeat at the hands of the West Indies in the first ODI of the three match series. England, playing their first match in almost two months were defeated by 40 runs at Warner Park, St Kitts by a fast improving West Indian side.
Home captain Merissa Aguilleira won the toss and elected to bat. Opening pair Stafanie Taylor and Pamela Lavine made a confident start with a partnership of 75 before a superb piece of fielding by captain Charlotte Edwards gave her side a much needed boost. England's bowlers struggled to find a consistent line and length throughout the innings and the West Indian players reaped the rewards including 14 fours and 3 sixes, much to the delight of the 500 strong crowd. A ferocious batting display from Cordel Jack who finished 81 not out from 116 balls including ten fours and one six helped the home side to a total of 235-6 from their 50 overs.
Set a formidable target of 236, the pressure was always going to be on England. Without two of their strongest players in Claire Taylor and Sarah Taylor, coach Mark Lane had made a number of changes to the batting line-up including experimenting with a new opening partnership of Ebony Rainford-Brent and Charlotte Edwards.
Rainford-Brent was the first to fall, stumped off the bowling of 18 year old Stafanie Taylor in the eighth over with the score at 24. Any initial nerves at having to reach 236 were calmed by a second wicket partnership of 83 between Edwards (58) and Greenway (41) before Lavine, adding to her fine performance with the bat, claimed three quick wickets to reduce England to 125-5. Despite some brave hitting from the lower order, the run rate crept up to 13 an over and the pressure eventually told with England all out for 195.
England captain Charlotte Edwards, speaking after the match, said: "Congratulations should go to the West Indian team for playing well today in front of their home crowd. They outplayed us and deserved to win but we'll come back fighting tomorrow."
England return to Warner Park tomorrow (Thursday) for the second of three ODI's and will be hoping to show the West Indian players and spectators the level of cricket that has seen them lift the ICC Women's World Cup and the ICC World Twenty20 during 2009.
Head Coach Mark Lane said:"I'm bitterly disappointed with the result today. We were outplayed in all three disciplines and in all honesty we just weren't good enough. We need to show plenty of character tomorrow, we're a great team so we'll dust ourselves down and I'm confident that we'll perform far better tomorrow and play at the level we know are capable of."
England will play a total of six matches against the West Indies. The ODI's will be followed by a three Twenty20 matches all played at Warner Park, St. Kitts.
Thursday 5 November: 2nd ODI match vs West Indies. Warner Park, St. Kitts
Saturday 7 November: 3rd ODI match vs West Indies. Warner Park, St. Kitts
Monday 9 November: 1st T20 match vs West Indies. Warner Park, St. Kitts
Tuesday 10 November: 2nd T20 match vs West Indies. Warner Park, St. Kitts
Thursday 12 November: 3rd T20 match vs West Indies. Warner Park, St. Kitts
