It was hard not to feel for Ben Stokes when he sat, head in hands, in despair after Carlos Brathwaite hit him for four consecu-WORLD tive sixes in the last over, an over that Stokes rWBNTTgO must have thought would end happily inpia before running up to bowl the first ball with 19 to defend. When considering that it was in the final of the World Twenty20 that

England reached after a long and arduous turnaround of short-form cricket attitude, the sympathy must have been greater.

“Cricket can be a cruel game," acknowledged England skipper Eoin Morgan after the final ended in a four-wicket win for the West Indies at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata yesterday. "I thought we did extremely well with the ball. At no stage did the West

Indies get anywhere near where they wanted."

Morgan thought that 155 for nine, the total they reached after being asked to bat, was 40 runs short. However, that they had 19 to defend in the last over was down to their tenacity and discipline. Stokes's death-over bowling credentials were instrumental in England reaching this far, and he was the obvious choice to bowl the last over. "It's quite simple from my point of view," said Morgan. "He [Stokes] is going to be devastated. It'll take its toll in the next couple of days. But we share the pain just as we share success. You could say what you like to him at the moment but he's probably not hearing it."

But Marlon Samuels, man-of-the-match for his unbeaten 66-ball 85, was not so sympathetic, especially after having had some words with Stokes during the match. "He is a nervous laddie, so what I tell Brathwaite

is to just hold his pose and he's going to bowl a couple of full tosses, as always, and it will work in our favour. So he played a brilliant knock at the end there to give me a little break down at the other end. He [Stokes] doesn't learn.

"They keep telling him when he plays against me, do not speak to me because then I'm going to perform. 1 didn't even face a ball and he had so much to say to me that I know 1 had to be right there

at the end, again."

But on a night when the West Indian rhythm reached far and wide, Morgan saw beyond the gloom. “Personally I think we will have a lot more success in the future. This is just the beginning," he said. Morgan acknowledged that in this game his side had been "terrible" with the bat. "But you make what you can with what you have.”