Chadwick Walton shone with a scintillating knock of 83 off 50 deliveries and put the West Indies Champions in a dominating match against England Champions during the World Championship of Legends (WCL) 2025 clash at The County Ground. Walton’s innings played the role of confidence booster for a side who were coming from a defeat against South Africa Champions via a bowl-out. He and Chris Gayle (19 runs off 14 balls) dominated the powerplay, WI-C were cruising at 61/3 in nine overs. Then the aggressive strokeplay by Keiron Pollard (30 runs in 16 balls) took the score past 100. Eng-C's Stuart Beaker (4/24) and Ajmal Shahzad (3/8) staged a remarkable fightback, and reduced WI-C to just 164/9 in 20 overs.
But England Champions could not make the target and lost their second match of the World Championship of Legends, played at Northampton. This loss has put Eng-C on the last position in the points table as they just have a single point, from the No Result match against Australia. Whereas, WI-C is in second position after winning two points, this win might provide them confidence for their upcoming matches against Australia Champions, Pakistan Champions and Indian Champions. Due to his pivotal knock comprising eight fours and five sixes, Chadwick Walton was the Player of the Match.
England Champion’s early collapse derailed their pursuit
From the toss it was evident that the surface will largely favour batters, hence a T20 showdown was expected but Engla. West Indies in an attempt to score big could only get till 164, only because of disciplined bowling by Eng-C specially in the death overs. Apart from the 18th over by Ajmal Shahzad which was a wicket maiden, in the slog overs WI-C could only score 15 runs. But the early collapse of England Champion’s Alastair Cook and Moeen Ali on golden ducks, Ian Bell and James Vince’s early dismissals put Eng-C in a spot of bother.
Samit Patel (52 off 36 balls) provided some respite in the middle order, and his partnerships with Ravi Bopara and Liam Plunkett were important to keep Eng-C in the game. But the mounting run rate and pressure due to the early collapse proved to mix well with the tight bowling done by WI-C’s Fidel Edwards (4/28) and Sheldon Cottrell, as Eng-C were all out for 154.West Indies Champions will look to build on this momentum, while England Champions aim to regroup for their next challenge against third placed South Africa Champions.
