West Indies v Ireland: Hosts ease to nine-wicket win to draw T20 series

West Indies secured a 1-1 draw with Ireland in the Twenty20 series after a crushing nine-wicket win in St Kitts.

Ireland raced to 50-0 in the fourth over with Kevin O’Brien (36) leading the charge but the tourists collapsed to 138 all out.

Kieran Pollard and Dwayne Bravo each took three wickets before Lendl Simmons smashed 10 sixes in an unbeaten 91 as the West Indies made 140-1 in 11 overs.

Ireland won the opener before Saturday’s game was rained off.

Ireland failed to capitalise on their good start after being put into bat, with Stirling (11) and O’Brien putting the tourists in a strong position before the wickets began to tumble.

Windies captain Pollard took four wickets in Saturday’s abandoned match and he again turned the game with an excellent spell of 3-19.

Bravo also impressed with 3-19 as Ireland were dismissed with five balls to spare to set a modest target of 139 at Warner Park.

Simmons brought West Indies to victory in style with five boundaries to go with his 10 maximums to make his 91 in just 40 balls.

Fellow opener Evin Lewis hit 46 from 25 balls before the left-hander fell to spinner Simi Singh.

Lost momentum

“We were outclassed in all facets – we started very well, as we have in most the games, but when you lose wickets you lose momentum,” said Irish captain Andrew Balbirnie.

“We had a few soft dismissals, which is hugely disappointing, because we came into this match firing and we simply didn’t put in a performance.

But to draw a series against the West Indies, we can take positives from that.

“Obviously in T20 all of our cricket is leading up to that World T20 and getting out of that group stage – the guys are hurting but they’ll learn from it, so that is all you can ask.”