England booked themselves an extra two days off after wrapping up a third Test series win against the West Indies.
Mark Wood took five wickets to help give the hosts a comfortable victory, with all 10 wickets still in hand by the end of play on Sunday afternoon.
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The Windies put up 282 in their first innings but just 175 in their second, meaning England only needed 87 to win after opening with 376.
And Ben Stokes’ 87 – including the fastest Test half-century in England history – alongside Ben Duckett’s 30 all it took to end the series early.
Wood had the crowd on their feet across the day at Edgbaston as he put on a show in the Midlands.
He had five wickets for just nine runs from six overs after the lunch interval, giving the Windies little to no chance of mounting a comeback.
It took Stokes just 24 balls to knock up 50 and he only stepped in as an opener late on to replace the injured Zak Crawley.
It was a classic Bazball performance from the captain that included nine fours and two sixes.
Opening the batting’s a breeze, eh @BENSTOKES38? #ENGVWI #BBCCRICKET PIC.TWITTER.COM/XOY3EBCPYW
— Test Match Special (@bbctms) JULY 28, 2024
7.2 overs is all it took to catch the required target, despite the best efforts of Mikyle Louis, who put up a maiden Test fifty.
The win saw England win the series 3-0 and their last victory saw them barely break a sweat.
Player of the Match Wood stepped up to the media after the game was finished and revealed he spoke to James Anderson for a bit of motivation.
He said: “I was in a bit of a bad fettle actually at lunch and I was wondering if it was something I was doing wrong or if I wasn’t quite getting the right length.
“I had a great conversation with Jimmy [Anderson] and a couple of the other backroom staff, and he just said, rather than thinking about the outcome, to start thinking about the skill element.”
For West Indies captain Kraigg Brathwaite, he simply admitted it was a tough series in which his side never really got going.
He said: “It was a tough series. We didn’t show a lot of discipline with the ball.
“We let them off the hook a lot of times and they were scoring way too fast.
“We didn’t get enough second-innings runs in the last two Test matches.”
