Windies demolish Kenya in W/Cup farewell

KIMBERLEY: West Indies ended its disappointing World Cup campaign with an emphatic 142-run win over Kenya yesterday that made a mockery of the African team’s qualification for the Super Sixes. Opening batsman Chris Gayle smashed 119 off 151 balls to help West Indies amass a respectable total of 246 for seven in the Group B match before the Caribbean bowlers demolished the Kenyans for a miserable 104 inside 36 overs.

Vasbert Drakes captured career-best figures of five for 33 including three wickets in eight balls, and Jermaine Lawson took two wickets on his first appearance of the tournament, at times bowling in excess of 150 km/h. The Kenyan batting was hopelessly equipped to deal with the ferocity of the West Indian quicks, with only Peter Ongondo, who top-scored with 24 late in the innings, showing any real resistance. The match could not have been more one-sided but the result still had no effect on the competition with West Indies, world champion in 1975 and 1979, missing out on the second round by just two points, while Kenya went through with 10 carry-over points, second only to defending champion Australia which has 12.  West Indies could easily rue its misfortune, it lost two certain points when its match against Bangladesh was washed out by rain, while Kenya collected four free points when New Zealand refused to travel to Nairobi because of security concerns.

Despite having little to play for except pride, West Indies still was keen to show why it was hard done by with a comprehensive display. Gayle cracked his first hundred of the tournament and Shivnarine Chanderpaul also helped himself to a half-century as Kenya’s bowlers struggled to make any real impression on a flat and at times lifeless pitch, relying on West Indian errors to make breakthroughs. Gayle and Chanderpaul piled on 122 for the first wicket with Chanderpaul reaching his fifty off 46 balls and Gayle from 88 deliveries, neither batsmen looking seriously threatened by a pedestrian Kenya attack.

MORE AGGRESSIVE

Chanderpaul was the more aggressive, striking seven boundaries and two sixes, off successive balls from Maurice Odumbe, before his impatience got the better of him on 66 and he top-edged an attempted sweep off Collins Obuya to Joseph Angara. Brian Lara, Marlon Samuels, Ricardo Powell and Carl Hooper also threw their wickets away cheaply, but Gayle kept the runs flowing with a powerful performance that came too late to save his team from an early exit. 

The Jamaican, who had managed just one half-century in his previous five World Cup games, reached his fifth one-day international hundred off 143 balls then went on the rampage, smashing two sixes, one of which landed outside the De Beers Diamond Oval, and two more boundaries before he was caught at deep backward point off Angara.

Kenya lost its first wicket in the fourth over when Drakes had Kennedy Otieno caught at fine leg for three, then Gayle took a juggling catch at second slip to remove Ravindu Shah and give Mervyn Dillon his only wicket. Drakes, 33, dismissed Brijal Patel and Hitesh Modi in successive deliveries. He missed out a hat-trick but added the scalp of Kenya captain Steve Tikolo at the end of his next over to complete his second five-wicket haul in one-day internationals. The Kenyan tail showed some signs of defiance when the result was already academic, taking the total past 100 to at least avoid the embarrassment of failing to reach triple figures.