Shane Watson celebrated his return to international cricket with a sparkling innings of 122 to drive Australia to a 39-run victory over West Indies in the third one-dayer and an unassailable 3-0 series lead. The 31-year-old opener’s 111-ball knock on Wednesday helped Australia to 329 for seven in their 50 overs and West Indies flirted with reaching the big victory target before James Faulkner (4-48) polished them off for 290 with 15 balls to spare. Darren Bravo top scored with 86 for West Indies, who will be playing only for pride in the remaining two matches in Sydney and Melbourne after a third emphatic defeat. It was the first one-day international ever played in the nation’s capital and the Manuka Oval track certainly gave the batsmen plenty of opportunity to score runs. Watson, who missed much of the domestic season through injury, reached his seventh ODI century in 102 balls and then conjured up two fours and two sixes in the next nine balls before holing out to Kieron Pollard at backward square leg.
“I’ve been dreaming of that for the last four weeks,” Watson, one of whose sixes was measured at 114 metres, said in a televised interview. “It was one of those days that you dream of when even from the first ball it feels like everything’s coming off the middle of your bat. I’m just so excited to be out here and playing.” Phil Hughes offered able support with 86 runs before being caught behind off the bowling of Darren Sammy, while the innings of Glenn Maxwell (4) and George Bailey (44) were both ended by stunning leaping catches from Pollard on the boundary. West Indies started their run-chase at a slow pace but soon picked up with typical flourish to match Australia’s run rate at around the 30 over mark. Left-arm seamer Faulkner made two crucial interventions, however, the first when he bowled dangerman Chris Gayle (2) and Darren Bravo in the space of four balls to leave West Indies at 215-5. He returned to end the match by claiming the wickets of Sunil Narine (1) and Darren Sammy (8) in three deliveries. All four of his victims in the match were bowled.
Century of sixes in one-dayers
Shane Watson became the fourth Australian and 22nd batsman overall to smash 100 or more sixes in one-day internationals. The right-hand opening batsman from Ipswich, reached this milestone, in the 135th innings of 155th match, by hitting the first six off Chris Gayle during his 122-run knock in the third one-day international match against West Indies at Manuka Oval, Canberra on Wednesday (February 6). Watson, smashed 18 sixes in 38 innings of 46 matches at home while he hit 83 sixes in 97 innings of 109 matches outside Australia. The 31-year old batsman, smashed 15 sixes during his unbeaten 185-run knock against Bangladesh at Dhaka on April 11,2011 which is a world record of most sixes in an innings in one-day international cricket. Pakistan’s Shahid Afridi who hit 298 sixes in 323 innings of 349 matches, holds the record of hitting the highest number of sixes in one-day internationals while Ricky Ponting’s 162 sixes in 365 innings of 376 matches is the Australian record of most sixes in instant cricket. S.Pervez Qaiser
MOST SIXES FOR AUSTRALIA IN ONE DAYERS:
Batsman M I N.O Runs AVG H.S 100 50 0 4s 6s
Picky Ponting 375 365 39 13704 42.03 164 30 82 20 1231 162
Adam Gilchrist 287 279 11 9619 35.89 172 16 55 19 1162 149
Andrew Symonds 198 161 33 5088 39.75 156 6 30 15 449 103
Shane Watson 155 135 24 4685 42.20 185* 7 28 8 462 101
Matthew Hayden 161 155 15 6133 43.80 181* 10 36 9 636 87