England romped into the semi-finals of the Women's T20 World Cup with a 38-run win over West Indies as Danni Wyatt-Hodge's 65 from 42 balls preceded a largely excellent team bowling display at a sweltering Lord's.
England's fourth victory from four, which ended West Indies' own 100 per cent record, was underpinned by Wyatt-Hodge's 22nd T20I fifty and her second knock of note in the tournament after her sublime century against Sri Lanka at Edgbaston on opening night.
Wyatt-Hodge's stands of 66 from 50 balls with Alice Capsey (28 off 23) and 40 off 24 with Heather Knight (43 off 26) helped England post 186-7 after losing the toss and being put in to bat by a West Indies side playing their first game at this famous ground.
West Indies' failed chase featured an eventful powerplay with captain Hayley Matthews (14) furious to be given out caught behind off left-arm spinner Linsey Smith - there was a spike on UltraEdge but a gap between bat and ball - and Deandra Dottin (19 off 11) going four, four, six off off-spinner Charlie Dean (2-31) before holing out three balls later.
England then squeezed the run-rate - Sophie Ecclestone taking 1-22 and Lauren Bell 1-20 - although some late-innings dropped catches and loose bowling allowed Chinelle Henry (51no off 30) and Jahzara Claxton (21 off 34) to club 63 from 53 balls for the fifth wicket as West Indies carded 148-5 having been reduced to 69-4 in 10.1 overs.
Dean captained England for the second consecutive match with usual skipper Nat Sciver-Brunt (calf) sitting out again and the latter will also miss her country's final group game against New Zealand on Saturday, across London at The Kia Oval (6.30pm first ball).
and the all-rounder is targeting that as a return date after a scan on Wednesday showed "good progress".
The hosts will guarantee top spot in Group 2, and likely swerve six-time champions Australia in the semi-finals, if they beat New Zealand, although that position could already be rubberstamped if West Indies slip up against Ireland in Bristol earlier that afternoon.
A win for the Caribbean outfit over Ireland would secure their own progression to the last four.
West Indies will want to improve their fielding against Ireland as blunders in that aspect versus England cost them dear, with Knight a chief beneficiary and Matthews one of the principal culprits.
Knight, who played pleasing drives and sweeps before being run out in the penultimate over, could have been run out by Matthews early in her innings, while she was inexplicably dropped by the Bajan at cover when on 14.
Dottin was also unable to cling on to a leaping half-chance at point when Wyatt-Hodge, in the teens at the time, carved away one of her eight boundaries prior to being run out.
That opportunity for Dottin came in the final over of a powerplay England ended on 57-2, having lost Amy Jones (8) in the first over - caught on the drive after back-to-back pulled boundaries - and then Sophia Dunkley (14) lbw on the sweep.
England looted 14 runs from Ashmini Munisar's final over, with Dean (9no) nailing successive reverse-swept boundaries and Ecclestone (4no) sweeping an orthodox four off the final ball of the innings, the first delivery she faced.
England fielded sharply to start with, exorcising some of the demons from their defeat to the same opponents in the 2024 T20 World Cup in the UAE that led to them being dumped out in the group stage after a host of shelled catches.
Dani Gibson saved a boundary with some athletic work in the deep in the first over of the run chase, bowled by Bell, while Capsey's catch at long-on to get rid of the dynamic Dottin was slick.
However, a clutch of late blemishes put a little dampener on things, with Smith and Jones grassing chances in the 14th over, Claxton profiting on both occasions, before Gibson shelled Henry in the 17th.
Smith then downed a sharp caught-and-bowled in a final over which featured two booming Henry sixes.
Those blunders did not cost England, though.
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