CANBERRA, Australia, CMC – West Indies captain Chris Gayle says his side’s crushing warm-up win on Thursday was an ideal start to their one-day tour and augured well for the upcoming series against Australia.
Propelled by Gayle’s whirlwind 146 from a mere 89 balls, West Indies completed a convincing 90-run over the Matthew Hayden-led Prime Minister XI at the Manuka Oval.
“This was a great start to the tour for us. This is what we wanted. We got a good pitch to play on and the players responded very well,” an elated Gayle said.
“I enjoyed my time out in the middle and I am also happy that some of the other players such as Travis Dowlin and Lendl Simmons also got good scores.
“We batted all the way down as well so overall we are happy with the performance.”
The right-handed Dowlin batted brilliantly to score 72 off 85 balls while Simmons looked a class act with 70 not out off just 49 balls, as West Indies piled up a massive 399 for five in a game reduced to 45 overs. In response, left-arm spinner Nikita Miller took two wickets with consecutive balls to end with three for 51 while medium pacer Darren Sammy finished with two for 37 to restrict the hosts to 312 for seven off their allotted overs.
Twenty-three-year-old Tom Cooper batted through the innings to make an unbeaten 160 and share the Man-of the-Match award with Gayle.
“In the bowling, everyone got a feel. We did not want to give any one bowler too much work,” Gayle pointed out.
“We tried to let everyone get an opportunity and as a precaution we did not want anyone to have a heavy workload.”
The match is the only official warm-up before West Indies face Australia in five One-Day Internationals starting Sunday (tonight, Eastern Caribbean time) in Mel-bourne.
Gayle said with the win under their belts, they would now build on this over the next few days for the opening game.
“Overall as a team we know we still have some work to do in the build-up to the first One-Day International, so we have a few more days to go where we will put in some more work in the nets so we can be fully ready to face Australia on Sunday,” the easygoing Jamaican said.
