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London: West Indies beat Australia by seven wickets in their Twenty20 World Cup group C match at the Oval in London on Saturday.
An easy victory for West Indies! One would have thought 169 would have been a competitive total but after the start Gayle and Fletcher provided West Indies were always the favourites.
An absolutely fantastic innings from Gayle who hit some murderous sixes. A disappointing day for Australia, they'll have much to think about before their next game against SL. West Indies, however, have much room for improvement in their fielding department.
So there was a sense of anticipation over how they would fare in their "preferred" format. Come match day in the Group of Death, and West Indies, and Chris Gayle, turned up for the first time in two months. They fielded pathetically, but that characteristic trait was sandwiched between superb opening bowling and explosive batting.
Gayle: I give credit to the team. 160 target was gettable. I want to give credit to Adrian Fletcher, he allowed to me pace my innings. The mindset was actually to try and go build partnerships. I've been here long enough to know the conditions...put this game behind us and focus on Sri Lanka.
Ponting: I didn't think it was a bad total. Chris and Adrian came and played the way they did, it was always going to be hard work for us. We didn't want to pitch the ball up to them. They've outplayed us in almost every aspect of the game. We obviously got a bit to talk about and got to turn things around quickly.
Chris Gayle is the Man of the Match for his magnificent innings.
The pace off the surface worked for both the West Indies bowlers and batsmen. While Jerome Taylor and Fidel Edwards used the briskness and clever variations to take early wickets, the ball traveled as fast off the bats of Gayle and Andre Fletcher as it came on to them.
Brief Score: West Indies 172 for 3 (Gayle 88, Fletcher 53) beat Australia 169 for 7 (Warner 63, David Hussey 27, Bravo 2-31) by seven wickets.
