Ashley Giles goes to the ball

The turning point of the day was easier to spot than it sometimes is. It was the moment when Brian Lara shimmied down the pitch to Ashley Giles, missed, and was bowled. Some of us wrote down "Game over" at that point and - despite the stickability of Shivnarine Chanderpaul, defying a bruised arm and a wounded knee only to be stranded just short of his second century of the match - we were right.

Until that point, shortly after the mid-morning drinks interval, Lara had seemed capable of batting all day, which would probably have saved the match if it didn't win it. It hadn't been a great match for him; after putting England in and watching them rack up nearly 400 for 2 on the first day, and then collecting a dodgy decision when he batted himself. Now Lara was visibly applying himself, getting back and across, playing straight, and glaring furiously at the fifth-day pitch when it occasionally misbehaved - a couple of balls from Stephen Harmison squatted, while another one climbed off a length.

Lara had been keen to knock Giles off his length all morning: in his first over he drilled a drive straight at mid-off, and shortly before his dismissal he danced down again, giving himself room to free his arms, and drove through the covers. So when Giles looped down another one invitingly outside off, Lara felt able to leave his crease again ... the fatal ball, though, gripped and turned, past that flashing blade. Lara had left himself room to bring the bat through for another drive, so his pads weren't in the way, and the ball scuttled through and hit middle. It was for that ball, and that wicket, that Giles pinched the Man-of-the-Match award off Robert Key.

It was a special ball, and a special way to celebrate your 100th Test wicket. It's been a long road for Giles since an uninspiring debut back in 1998, with injuries slowing him down, and a remodelled action taking time to groove. But those taunts of "wheelie-bin" are a bit passé now. Giles finished with five wickets in the innings - and he might have had more, after shouting himself hoarse for some pretty adjacent lbws - and nine in the match for 210 (coincidentally, England's exact margin of victory). He's usually been at his best for England overseas - today's was his fourth five-wicket haul in Tests, but his first at home - but he's going to be difficult to shift as the No. 1 spinner for a while yet.

And so England won comfortably to go one-up. Time was when victories over West Indies came around about as often as Halley's Comet - but this was England's seventh win in their last nine Tests against the once-mighty Windies. Given England's superior bowling resources, the likelihood is that there will be a few more this summer.