Canberra win gives Gayle heart

Australia prime minister Kevin Rudd awards West Indies the winning shield for beating his side in the warm-up in Canberra

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Chris Gayle is confident West Indies head into their five-match one-day international series in Australia in fine shape after this week’s impressive warm-up victory over the Prime Minister’s XI.

Gayle struck 146 from just 89 balls as the tourists posted 399 for five from their rain-reduced 45 overs in a 90-run triumph on the Duckworth/Lewis Method at Canberra's Manuka Oval.

“This was a great start to the tour for us,” Gayle said. “This is what we wanted. We got a good pitch to play on and the players responded very well.

“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.

“In the bowling, everyone got a feel. We did not want to give any one bowler too much work. We tried to let everyone get an opportunity and as a precaution we did not want anyone to have a heavy workload.

“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.”

West Indies all-rounder Dwayne Bravo has been ruled out of the ODI series with a thumb injury and has been replaced in the squad by Wavell Hinds.

Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Fidel Edwards, Jerome Taylor and Ramnaresh Sarwan are also on the treatment table.