Providence, Guyana, March 23: Andrew Strauss hit his third one-day international hundred, but England still went down to a 21-run defeat at the hands of the West Indies at the Guyana National Stadium on Sunday.

The captain made 105 from 129 balls as England, chasing 265 for victory, were dismissed for 243 in 48.2 overs to allow West Indies to draw level at 1-1 in the five-match series.

The third and fourth matches will be contested at Kensington Oval in Barbados on Friday and Sunday, with the final game set for St. Lucia on April 6.

England had won the opener here on Friday when West Indies coach John Dyson embarrassingly miscalculated the Duckworth-Lewis method and handed his opponents a one-run win.

"We lost too many wickets too early and we were always behind the eight ball," admitted Strauss.

"We needed things to go our way in the last powerplay but with the medium pacers bowling, it wasn’t easy to get the ball away. It was getting lower and slower, so we had to take risks to get runs."

West Indies skipper Chris Gayle said his team had a point to prove. "We were really down after what happened on Friday," said Gayle. "We wanted to give the crowd something to cheer about and I want to commend the guys for the way they played."

Man-of-the-match Shivnarine Chanderpaul scored his 10th one-day hundred to lead West Indies to 264/8 from their 50 overs.

Strauss reached his hundred from 126 balls with a drive through cover for two off Kieron Pollard, but England lost wickets steadily. Their best stands were 50 between Strauss and Owais Shah for the third wicket, and 59 between the England captain and Dmitri Mascarenhas for the sixth.

Mascarenhas made 29 and Shah made 22 and were the only other batsmen that passed 20. Dwayne Bravo and Pollard both collected two wickets for West Indies.

Earlier, England, particularly Paul Collingwood and Mascarenhas, bowling their modest medium-pace, restricted West Indies to 57 runs in the last 10 overs and collected four cheap wickets to scupper the home team’s hunt for quick late runs.

The tourists had been under pressure from Chanderpaul and compatriot Ramnaresh Sarwan when they put on 133 from 177 balls for the third wicket, after West Indies elected to bat and lost Lendl Simmons for a duck and fellow opener Gayle, for 20, inside the first six overs. — AFP