FLORENCE HALL, Trelawny — West Indies all-rounder Deandra Dottin says England held their nerve better to secure a thrilling five-run win in the first One-Day International match at Trelawny Multi-purpose Stadium yesterday.

England, bowling a tight line and length on a pitch slow pitch that offered some uneven bounce, defended 149 despite the West Indies seemingly cruising at 53 without loss at one point.

“They never say never,” Dottin said, referring to the England team.

“They continued pushing and still believed [they could win],” she told members of the media after the match.

The strongly built player, who took three wickets to help dismiss England and top-scored with 27 in the West Indies innings of 144, said the hosts will bounce back.

“It’s not the start we were looking for, but we just have to go back to the drawing board and see where we went wrong. Our batting fell short and some of us, including myself, needed to stand up and bat. We did not bat together as well as we wanted to, but we have players who can bat from one until… but we’ll bounce back,” she vowed.

The ODI series is set to continue with tomorrow’s match at the same venue.

Three matches remain at Sabina Park in Kingston. The final three ODIs will count towards the ICC Women’s Championship, which will determine four automatic qualifiers for the 2017 ICC Women’s World Cup to be hosted by the England & Wales Cricket Board.

Heather Knight, the England captain, praised her team for a stout effort after limited preparation due to rainfall associated with the recent passing of Hurricane Matthew.

“It’s really good to win… obviously our preparation was slightly interrupted by the hurricane, so considering we had little practice it was very nice to go out there and get the win. We want to keep this up,” she told the Jamaica Observer.

She said Danielle Wyatt, who made 44, played a crucial knock, though she was targetting a score of 180-200.

“The batters did well to get us to near 150 because it was really tough conditions out there. It was slow out there and conducive to spin. And the sort of bounce out there was quite uneven. [Wyatt] batted really well and sort of kept her game plan very simple.

“I thought we were slightly under par but seeing the conditions i knew we were still in the game. The way our bowling attack was doing i knew we had the skills to defend that,” Knight said.

— Sanjay Myers