GROS ISLET: Opener Phil Salt slammed a belligerent unbeaten 87 as defending champions England began their T20 World Cup Super Eights campaign with a crushing eight-wicket win over co-hosts West Indies here.

Coming off a scorching display against Afghanistan, West Indies amassed a competitive 180 for four, but England waltzed to 181 for two in 17.3 overs in their Group 2 match.

Salt led the Three Lions’ charge with a bruising innings that came off 47 balls with seven fours and five sixes. The right-hander received copious help from Jonny Bairstow (48 not out, 26b, 5×4, 2×6).

But equal amount of credit should be given to the English bowlers for producing as many as 51 dot balls with Jofra Archer (1/34) and Adil Rashid (1/21) accounting for 22 of them in their tidy spells after Jos Buttler opted to bowl.

Their win with 15 balls to spare took the net run-rate of England to 1.343, putting them ahead of South Africa who posted a win over tournament co-hosts USA earlier on Wednesday.

“That’s a really good performance from us, we executed well with both bat and ball. I thought we bowled really well to restrict such a powerful batting line-up, still we had to chase it down, but smart play from us. The partnership between Salt and Bairstow was great,” England skipper Jos Buttler said.

WI now have a negative NRR -1.343 which may be a worry for them as they will have two must win matches against the USA and South Africa coming their way.

“When you look from the batting perspective, we were 15-20 runs short. We could have given a better display with the ball,” felt WI skipper Rovman Powell.

On Brandon King’s injury, Powell said: “Just a bit worried, but hopefully, he can pull through for the next game.”