On a very green deck at Chelmsford, England beat the West Indies by 17 runs to win the series 3-0. Heather Knight whittled her way to a positive half-century; Lauren Bell took 2-11; but for the second time in three matches, the player of the match was the losing captain – Hayley Matthews taking 3 wickets and hitting 71 off 54 balls.

Having been put into bat England got off to the worst of starts. In an action-replay of proceedings at Hove, Danni Wyatt-Hodge was bowled for a duck by Zaida James off the first ball of England’s innings; but unlike at Hove or Canterbury, England failed to make the powerplay count, also losing Dunkley to a sharp catch behind, reaching just just 24-2 off those first 6 overs, compared to 51-1 at Canterbury and 49-1 at Hove.

Nat Sciver-Brunt needed to have a word with the steel band who were in the house to entertain the punters at Chelmsford – unlike them, she couldn’t quite find her rhythm. She lasted 40 balls for 37, but then with Heather Knight having slog-swept Hayley Matthews into the stands a couple of balls earlier, she tried the same thing but whacked it a little less square than Knight had done, finding the fielder at deep midwicket.

This put a bit of pressure on Amy Jones, coming to the crease for the first time in this series with England perhaps a little bit behind the pace; but she got quickly into the action with consecutive boundaries off Afy Fletcher and continued to match Heather Knight run-for-run as they put on a hustley-bussley 42.

Knight played with freedom and looks more relaxed than she has done in years for England (I wonder why that might be?) but the same can’t be said of her hamstring, which started to give her trouble around the 16th over. Stretching it between balls, she battled on, but by the final over she was hobbling between the sticks. But it didn’t stop her finishing on another not out score of 66, to add to the undefeated 43 she made at Canterbury. I still wouldn’t have picked her for this series, for the same reasons Mark Robinson opted not to keep Charlotte Edwards around when Knight succeeded to the captaincy all those years ago; but it’s difficult to argue that Knight doesn’t merit her spot on form.

It meant that despite their unpromising start, England reached 144 – a little over par for T20 internationals between the Championship sides, having gone at in excess of 8 an over through the later phases.

With England having lost their opener off the first ball of their innings, West Indies then proceeded to do the same – Lauren Bell serving up one of those unplayable magic balls that only she can bowl to Qiana Joseph, who just looked confused as she began a slow, slow walk back to the pavilion shaking her head in bemusement. There might be better bowlers in the world than Bell right now; but Bell’s best ball remains better than anyone’s.

I’d have given Bell another over, but Linsey Smith replaced her and caused fellow leftie Zaida James all sorts of problems; though it was Em Arlott who picked up James’s wicket with a rank delivery in the final over of the powerplay – a nonetheless crucial intervention which put England just ahead on DLS with the weather starting to look grim, even though the Windies powerplay score was 10 runs ahead of where England had been.

By the end of the 8th over, the threat of rain had turned into actual wet stuff descending from the sky; but another tight over from Smith kept England on top with West Indies 4 runs behind par. There were several points where a single boundary followed by an uptick in the rain could have won West Indies the game. England managed to drop Realeanna Grimmond three times in three consecutive balls – a tough swirling chance put down by Nat Sciver-Brunt; an easy caught and bowled shelled by Charlie Dean; and then a difficult reaction-catch behind the stumps, though one we’d generally expect the best keeper in the world to take.

Finally, Grimmond offered-up a fourth chance which was pouched by Danni Wyatt-Hodge in the deep. That wicket added substantially to England’s DLS comfort zone, which was now 11 runs; and for a moment everything began to look brighter, including the weather.

You can never count Hayley Matthews out, and she did drag her side back again to within a single hit of getting on top on DLS. But when the rain returned too heavily to ignore England were still 9 ahead, as the players left the field and 2/3 of the spectators headed home assuming that would be that.

It was not, quite. The players returned; but Shabika Gajnabi forgot to bring her brain out to the middle, and was bowled by Linsey Smith attempting the most ridiculously telegraphed switch hit. With the game having reached the point where losing wickets matters a lot less to DLS, it wasn’t inevitably the end of things; but two further wickets fell quickly, including the big one – Matthews caught at long on by Em Arlott staying calm under a steepling ball.

The 31 off 12 balls that the West Indies needed by the time we got to the finale was enough that Arlott – hampered by a damp ball – could get away with bowling by far the worst over of her short international career so far, though it still resulted in a wicket thanks to a great catch from the captain at mid off; leaving Charlie Dean to bowl out the last as England won by 17 runs – a margin that felt about right on the day.

Matthews was Player of the Series, having scored 177 runs – more than all the other West Indies batters put together – a staggering achievement amid the carnage all around her. Given the fragility of the rest of their lineup, it now feels like it would be a minor miracle if they bat-out 50 overs in the upcoming ODI series which begins in Derby on Friday.