Nicholas Pooran’s West Indies cruised to an 18-run win over Australia in the opening fixture of the five-match T20 International series at the Darren Sammy Stadium in St Lucia on Friday local time. Windies, after posting a 146-run total in 20 overs, dismissed the visitors for 127 off 16 overs.

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For West Indies, Obed McCoy (4/26) and Hayden Walsh (3/23) combined for seven wickets to trigger an Australian collapse, the last six wickets falling for 19 runs. 

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Australia’s Mitchell Marsh scored 51 runs off 31 balls with two sixes and five fours. Just when Marsh was about to take the match away, Walsh dismissed him, leaving Australia at 117/6 in the 13th over. Matthew Wade (33 runs off 14 balls) did get off to a flier in the start but handed a catch to Shimron Hetmyer off Andre Russell’s bowling. 

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In the first innings, Andre Russell‘s first T20I fifty, 51 runs off 28 balls, helped the West Indies reach a total of some respectability. Australia’s opening bowler Josh Hazlewood produced the outstanding figures of 3/12 off four overs. 

Losing captain Aaron Finch lauded the Aussie bowlers for the way they bowled in the powerplay. 

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“After the position, Marsh and Wade got us into, I thought we panicked a bit. We have been working on batting aggressively in the middle overs, but today we probably had to adapt better. Thought the pitch actually got better in the second innings, the ball came through nicely and that made this (loss) very disappointing because we need only around 4 runs per over for most parts. Just need to dust this game off and be ready for the next match tomorrow,” he said.

Obed McCoy (4/26) was named the man of the match.