Tuesday, June 2, 2009

Windies & S Lanka win in warm-ups

ICC WORLD TWENTY20
Venues: Lord's, The Oval, Trent Bridge Date: 5-21 June
Coverage: Test Match Special commentary on BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Extra, Radio 4 LW, Red Button and online, with live text commentary on BBC Sport website & mobiles. Live TV coverage on Sky Sports with highlights on BBC

Chris Gayle
Gayle was in typically ruthless mood with some fierce shots at The Oval

West Indies and Sri Lanka enjoyed contrasting warm-up victories ahead of the ICC World Twenty20 in England.

The Windies thrashed Ireland by nine wickets at The Oval, Chris Gayle with seven sixes in 88 from 56 balls to seal victory with four overs remaining.

Sri Lanka restricted Bangladesh to 151-6 at Trent Bridge.

Mahela Jayawardene made an assured 43 from 28 balls but a collapse meant they inched home by four wickets with only two balls remaining.

Former skipper Jayawardene played some stunning strokes in his blitz.

In one over from Mohammad Mahmudullah he played a reverse sweep for four, sauntered down the wicket to flick over long-on for six, then played a conventional sweep for four more.

But when he edged to the keeper with 39 needed from 37 balls the problems started for Sri Lanka.

Only six came off the next two overs but Jehan Mubarak hit three quick boundaries, and although wickets continued to fall, the requirement was whittled down to seven from the last over and victory was secured with a wide.

The West Indies were chasing only 130 and had made 77-1 by the halfway stage of their reply, of which Gayle contributed 50.

Off-spinner Kyle McCallan's third over saw conceded two sixes and two more came in the decisive 16th over, sent down by medium pacer John Mooney.

Gayle, whose team were soundly beaten in both the Test and one-day matches against England, said it was a morale-boosting victory.

"It is good to get wins under our belts," he said. "People may say it is against a weaker opponent but that does not matter - if they beat us it would be a different story.

"It has been a fresh start for us, it is a different format of the game and we have had a couple of new faces in our dressing room.

"We have some advantage of being here for such a long time and we have to try to put those negatives of the England series behind us and focus on what is ahead."

о 7:45 AM

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