Sports
England sweep series 3-0 after Wood finishes off West Indies resistance
Mark Wood’s breathtaking post-lunch spell netted him a five-wicket haul and put England on the brink of another comprehensive victory over West Indies, which they sealed inside three days at Edgbaston.
Whereas his relentless rockets at Trent Bridge had jaws on the floor but yielded just two wickets for the match, his mastery of a reverse-swinging ball in the hour after lunch accounted for all five remaining West Indies wickets for 19 runs in the space of 39 balls. Wood ended with 5 for 40 from 14 overs, his fifth five-wicket haul in Tests, to add to his 2 for 52 from West Indies’ first innings.
The burst obliterated the efforts of Mikyle Louis and Kavem Hodge, who both scored half-centuries, as West Indies were left with a paltry 81-run lead.
The run-chase was perfectly poised for England to Bazball their way to victory, especially with Ben Stokes opening in place Zak Crawley, who had left the ground for scans after injuring his finger while fielding. Stokes struck a staggering 57 off 28 balls as he and Ben Duckett, with 25 off 16, mowed down the target in 7.2 overs without loss for a 3-0 series sweep.
England reached fifty off just 26 balls, equalling their team record posted at Trent Bridge. On this occasion, Stokes scored 41 of those runs. Duckett, seemingly tired of playing the supporting role after he was key to the fastest-fifty record in Nottingham, struck four boundaries in one Jason Holder over.
Stokes, meanwhile, notched the fastest Test fifty for an England batter and joint third-fastest overall, off just 24 balls, and hit the winning runs, swinging a waist-high full-toss from Kraigg Brathwaite for six through backward square-leg, emphasising the one-sided nature of the series despite some encouraging passages of fight from West Indies.
It was Stokes who had initially got the ball reversing in the morning session and he deployed Wood and Gus Atkinson – who had already claimed two wickets for the day – to good effect in the afternoon.
With West Indies five wickets down and just 57 runs ahead, Joshua Da Silva hadn’t moved off his lunch-time score of 2 when he was rapped on the pad by a reverse-swinging yorker delivered at 90mph, umpire Adrian Holstock unmoved by Wood’s emphatic appeal and the batter surviving England’s review on umpire’s call. But Da Silva added just three more runs when Wood had him irrefutably out with a full ball moving in past the bat to strike low on the back leg in line with middle stump.
A short while later, Wood’s reversing yorker ripped out Alzarri Joseph’s middle stump and West Indies were 162 for 7 with England scenting victory.
It was sound justification for Stokes keeping Wood on for a rare sixth over on the trot and the move paid huge dividends with three wickets falling in the over.
Wood struck first ball to remove West Indies’ remaining recognised batter, Hodge getting a thick edge on a late-reversing rocket to be caught behind by Jamie Smith.
Then Wood sent Jayden Seales’ off stump tumbling for a three-ball duck to continue the procession, which he ended with another late reverse-swinging delivery which Shamar Joseph edged to Harry Brook at second slip.
Louis and Hodge had steadied West Indies from 53 for 3 with a 72-run stand off 78 balls for the fourth wicket.
They came together after Shoaib Bashir had accounted for Alick Athanaze, who managed to add ten runs for the day, including a four off Wood through third slip, where Brook got his hands to it but couldn’t hold what would have been a spectacular catch. Five balls after the reprieve, Bashir clipped Athanaze’s front pad with a ball that slid under his attempted sweep.
Hodge gave West Indies cause for optimism based on his century at Trent Bride and he delivered with his second Test fifty. He struck back-to-back fours off Wood, one swung through midwicket and the other with a beautiful drive.
Louis brought up his half-century with a slog-swept six off Bashir and he helped himself to another maximum off Bashir’s next over, clearing the boundary at long-off.
While Stokes was getting the ball to reverse swing, he got Louis fending at one that pitched on a length outside off stump and edging to Crawley at second slip.
Crawley was in the same position when he dropped Holder, on 12 at the time, off Stokes, injuring his finger in the process, but Atkinson removed Holder at the end of the next over with an inswinger that struck the front knee roll, the batter’s review failing when ball-tracking ruled it was umpire’s call on hitting leg stump.
Brief scores:
England 376 in 5.4 overs (Jamie Smith 95, Joe Root 87, Chris Woakes 62, Ben Stokes 54; Alzarri Joseph 4-122, Jayden Seales 3-79) and 87 for 0 in 7.2 overs (Ben Stokes 57*, Ben Duckett 25*) beat West Indies 282 in 75.1 overs (Kraigg Brathwaite 61, Jason Holder 59; Gus Atkinson 4-67, Chris Woakes 3-69) and 175 in 52 overs (Mikyle Louis 57, Kavem Hodge 55; Mark Wood 5-40) by ten wickets
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The Tri-Nation One-Day Series, featuring Sri Lanka ‘A’, India ‘A’, and Afghanistan ‘A’, will be played at the Rangiri Dambulla International Cricket Stadium (RDICS), Dambulla, commencing on 9 June 2026.
The Four-Day Series between Sri Lanka ‘A’ and India ‘A’ will be played at the Galle International Cricket Stadium (GICS), Galle, with the first match scheduled to begin on 25 June 2026.

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SLC name squads for West Indies Emerging Tour of Sri Lanka 2026
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ICC delegation visits Bangladesh to ‘review developments linked to the BCB’
A two-member ICC delegation that visited Dhaka earlier this week will report its findings and observations to the governing body. According to an ICC media release, directors Dr Mohammed Moosajee and Tavengwa Mukuhlani engaged with “a range of stakeholders to review developments linked to the BCB”.
Moosajee and Mukuhlani arrived in Dhaka on June 1, after which they met BCB’s ad-hoc committee members, including president Tamim Iqbal. The pair also met with members of the BCB’s election commission, with the polls scheduled to be held on June 7.
ESPNcricinfo has learned that the delegation also met with BCB directors who had resigned from the previous board. Among the directors who didn’t resign, Asif Akbar and Ahsan Iqbal Chowdhury were in the group that also met the ICC delegation in a separate meeting on June 2.
Afterwards, Aminul Islam, the former Bangladesh captain who was the BCB president until April, claimed that they urged the ICC to not recognise any election conducted by or under the authority of the ad-hoc committee on June 7 or at any other time. Aminul, who still considers himself the BCB president, said that the BCB’s ad-hoc committee should correct their May 31 press release regarding the ICC delegations’ visit to Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s High Court rejected a writ petition that challenged the legality of the election schedule and voter list for the upcoming BCB elections on June 7.
The bench of Justice Bhishmadev Chakrabortty and Justice Md Ashif Hasan passed the rejection order stating that the petition was not presented properly before it. The petition was filed on May 18, a month and a bit after the country’s sports ministry dissolved the BCB’s board of directors on April 7. They appointed an 11-member ad-hoc committee led by Tamim, the former Bangladesh captain, on the same day.
[Cricinfo]
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