Melbourne: Australia continued their unbeaten streak this summer with another win as they beat West Indies in the first one-dayer of the five-match series by 113 runs.

Chasing a very gettable target of 257 to win, Chris Gayle’s men were bowled out for 143 in the 35th over. Fast bowler Ryan Harris and off spinner Nathan Hauritz continued their brilliant form with the ball, scalping three-wickets each for 24 and 28 runs respectively.

The visitors were never in the game except for the 64-run stand between Kieron Pollard (31) and Lendl Simmons (29) in the middle order, but once that was broken by Hauritz and Shane Watson at the halfway mark, the game was all but over for the West Indies.

Earlier, Watson, playing in his 100th one-day international for Australia, top scored with 59 as the home team failed to build on a great start provided to it by Watson and skipper Ricky Ponting. Australia looked well on their way to notching up a score in excess of 300 when they reached 118 for one after 25 overs, but thanks to Pollard, the home side could manage only 256.

Watson and Ponting’s 85-run stand was the highest of the match as Watson, who has taken eight years to bring up his 100-game milestone in one-day internationals, reached 50 in the 23rd over while Ponting fell just short when bowled by Pollard for 49.

Talking about the team’s performance after the game, Gayle said, “It’s very disappointing this is not the start we wanted, it’s a terrible display. The way we go about our batting is our biggest downfall.”

“I thought we did pretty well with the ball… the wicket was a bit slower than when the Australians were batting, but I thought we should have got 257. We thought we were capable, but we fell well short,” ABC Sport quoted Gayle, as saying.

Tagged with: Australia, Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Lendl Simmons, Melbourne, Nathan Hauritz, Ryan Harris, Shane Watson, West Indies

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