Australia has taken a 1-0 lead in the one-day series against the West Indies after a thumping victory in Barbados.
Mitchell Starc and Josh Hazlewood ripped through the West Indies batting lineup, dismissing the home side for just 123, as Australia won by 133 runs.
Chasing a revised target of 257 to win from 49 overs, the home side’s innings was in tatters inside eight overs, with the Aussie quicks reducing the West Indies to 6-27.
Starc got the innings off to the best possible start, dismissing Evin Lewis first ball, after Lewis tried to work a ball off his pads into the leg side, only to get a leading edge back to the bowler.
FULL SCORES: AUSTRALIA vs WEST INDIES
The left-armer struck again with the first ball of his second over, a lovely inswinger that was far too good for Jason Mohammed, who left a gap the size of Sydney Heads between bat and pad.
Hazlewood chimed in in the third over, leaving the home side in disarray. Starc’s opening spell was 3-29 off five overs, Hazlewood’s figures were 3-11 off six. Starc later came back for a second spell, finishing with 5-48 off eight.
Earlier, a century partnership between Alex Carey and Ashton Turner was one of the few highlights for Australia with the bat.
Carey, in his first match as captain, top scored with 67 off 87 balls, combining with Turner (49 off 45) for a fifth wicket partnership of 104.
“We won the toss and batted, and I thought the wicket may have played a little bit different to what it did,” Carey said.
“Ashton played a really crucial role, I was cruising along a little bit, and he was getting on with it.
“He took the pressure off.”
It came as Australia’s top-order batsmen once again failed to convert a start into a substantial score, with debutantes Josh Philippe (39) and Ben McDermott (28), along with Mitchell Marsh (20) all failing to kick on.
Even worse was the lower-order collapse which saw Australia crumble from 4-218 at the start of the 45th over, to 8-229 just 15 balls later.
The tourists eventually limped to 9-252 from 49 overs, with leg-spinner Hayden Walsh picking up his best ODI figures of 5-39, as Australia’s struggles against spin carried over from the T20 series.
“The conditions are really foreign to us,” Turner said.
“Travelling halfway across the world to get here, but we’ve had some time to adjust now, playing the T20 series.
“We saw it favoured the spin bowlers quite a lot, but I think the quick bowlers will be happy to bowl out there.
“There was a little bit of two-paced in the wicket, it was a challenge, but there was runs to be scored if you knuckled down.”
Turner lamented the middle-order collapse that saw both himself and Carey dismissed in the same over, preventing an acceleration of the run-rate in the closing overs.
“We knew that we had to take the innings deep and bat for a little bit of time, and hopefully try and cash in at the end,” he said.
“Unfortunately we weren’t able to do that, both Alex and I got out at pretty important times, and we weren’t able to capitalise on those last couple of overs.
As well as Philippe and McDermott, Australia also handed Wes Agar (0-15 off six overs) his first ODI cap.
For a daily dose of the best of the breaking news and exclusive content from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!
For all the latest Sports News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.
