Australia on Sunday crushed West Indies by 113 runs in the first ODI at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Chasing an attainable 257 on a dry, hard pitch in warm conditions, 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 white ball, snaring three-wicket hauls each for 24 and 28 runs respectively.
The visitors’ only true resistance came in the form of a 64-run stand between Kieron Pollard (31) and Lendl Simmons (29) in the middle order, but that was squashed by Hauritz and Shane Watson at the halfway mark.
Earlier, Watson celebrated his 100th one-day international appearance for Australia by top scoring with 59 as the home team failed to build on a great start provided to it by Watson and skipper Ricky Ponting.
Australia looked poised for a huge score when they reached 118 for one after 25 overs, but thanks to Pollard, the home side’s total looked gettable before the visitors’ top-order collapse.
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. (ANI)
