Windies ease to win over Zimbabwe

West Indies showed Zimbabwe the value of quality seam-up bowling as they dismissed the tourists for 104 to win the third one-day international by 141 runs.

Zimbabwe sent down 41 overs of spin as the hosts posted 245 for nine, a score which, boosted by some lower-order hitting, proved to be more than competitive on a tough St Vincent wicket.

That bowling performance was in stark contrast to that of West Indies, whose spinner Nikita Miller did not even appear until the pace attack had taken nine wickets, including career-best figures of four for 26 from Darren Sammy.

Zimbabwe's total was the lowest in one-day internationals at the Arnos Vale Ground.

Windies skipper Chris Gayle was unusually subdued with the bat, though he outscored his opening partner Adrian Barath with 33 off 53 balls in a stand of 48.

The highlight was a huge six off Ray Price, who opened the bowling for Zimbabwe, but he was stumped by Tatenda Taibu when he strayed out of his ground to a flighted Prosper Utseya delivery.

Barath (35) and Shivnarine Chanderpaul struggled to do much with the barrage of spin, and the former fell to a catch by Timycen Maruma at long on, giving Utseya his second wicket.

Chanderpaul clipped a six off Graeme Cremer to take West Indies past 100 as he and Denesh Ramdin accumulated, but in general it was uninspiring stuff.

The pair fell in successive balls, Ramdin to a mistimed pull off Maruma and Chanderpaul (58) run out attempting a suicidal single.

Narsingh Deonarine and Dwayne Bravo attempted to pick up the pace, each scoring 20-odd at a run a ball, before some late swipes from Kieron Pollard and Ravi Rampaul took West Indies close to 250, well above the average first-innings effort at Arnos Vale.

If the first half of the game had been a sleepy affair, Kemar Roach brought some life to proceedings by uprooting Vusi Sibanda's off stump with his third ball.

Zimbabwe briefly rallied with a partnership of 51 between Hamilton Masakadza and Brendan Taylor, but when the latter sent a simple return catch to Sammy it was the first of four wickets to fall for seven runs.

Taibu edged a jaffa from Sammy through to Ramdin and Stuart Matsikenyeri was lbw to Bravo, before top scorer Masakadza (35) was caught behind to give Sammy his third.

Roach then returned to take two more, including a stunning slip catch from Gayle to remove Greg Lamb, and Maruma was bowled by Sammy, who was denied a five-wicket haul when his captain
dropped Cremer.

He fell to Bravo soon after and Miller got in on the act to take the final wicket in a comprehensive victory which put the hosts 2-1 ahead in the five-match series.