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Easy win for Windies

West Indies batting came good on Sunday as they plundered their highest score against Zimbabwe to pave the way for a 41-run win at Sabina Park in the second match of their triangular limited-overs international series.

Pakistan, who are yet to play, is the other team in the competition.

Left-hander Wavel Hinds, named man-of-the-match, hit 12 fours and one six in an undefeated 116 off 124 balls to be the cornerstone of the West Indies total of 280 for three off 50 overs after choosing to bat.

Half-centuries from Stuart Carlisle and captain Andy Flower helped Zimbabwe make a scrap of it, but the West Indies bowlers did their homework and restricted their opponents to 239 for eight off 50 overs.

Before a stadium packed with his compatriots, Hinds found a worthy ally in fellow left-handed Jamaican Chris Gayle. Together they flayed the Zimbabwe attack in the last 15 overs to share an unbroken fourth-wicket stand of 125 off 91 balls which included 13 fours and two sixes.

Gayle was unbeaten on 58 off 45 balls including five fours and one six to help West Indies reach their highest total against Zimbabwe in eight matches.

Opening batsmen Sherwin Campbell and Philo Wallace shared 53 for the first wicket in 11.5 overs, but perished in the space of 22 balls to fast-medium bowler Gary Brent, whose two for 34 from eight overs made him the most successful Zimbabwe bowler.

West Indies started to turn the screws when Hinds and captain Jimmy Adams added 95 for the third wicket off 122 balls. Most of the runs which they gathered in the 20.1 overs they batted through were mostly well-judged singles against some tight, but unpenetrative bowling.

Adams, however, was run out for the second successive day when he failed to beat Stuart Carlisle's direct hit at the wicketkeeper's end from mid-wicket in the 36th over going for a cheeky single. The two sons of the Jamaica soil left the partisan crowd in a frenzy with their positive batting which fetched exactly 100 runs in the final 10 overs.

Hinds had two of his three lives in the final phase of the innings and, at 96, Gary Brent muffed a chance at deep backward square leg and the ball rolled into the boundary to give him his hundred.

Apart from fast bowler Reon King's fourth over, which yielded 13 runs comprising three fours and a no-ball, Zimbabwe's opening batsmen Grant Flower and Craig Wishart were unable to give their side the kind of enterprising start which they needed. They were dismissed in the space of five balls.

Flower was bowled missing a slog at the most undisguised slow ball Curtly Ambrose will ever bowl, and Wishart touched a rising ball from King to wicketkeeper Ridley Jacobs. Those two wickets left Zimbabwe on 25 for two in the 12th over, but a stand of 47 between Carlisle, whose 57 off 70 balls was the top score, and Murray Goodwin gave some beef to the total.

Goodwin was bowled for 20 off 26 balls when he dragged a short ball from Rose into his stumps in the 23rd over, leaving Zimbabwe 72 for three. Carlisle and Flower, who gathered 52 from 54 balls, shared 69 for the fourth wicket off 71 balls, but two wickets in five balls knocked the wind out of Zimbabwe's sails.

Carlisle caught at mid-off in the 35th over off King and, four balls later, Dirk Viljoen edged low to slip off the same bowler to give King the last of his three wickets for 27 runs from eight overs.

Zimbabwe were 146 for five in the 35th over and, though Flower and Guy Whittall added 43 off 42 balls for the sixth wicket, it was always going to be difficult for the tourists to get to their target.