CAVE HILL-The out­stand­ing Chris Gayle took cen­tre stage with an ex­cit­ing half-cen­tu­ry in a smooth all-rounder per­for­mance as West In­dies beat a UWI Se­lect XI by 77 runs, to sweep their warm-up dou­ble­head­er at the 3W's Oval here Thurs­day night. Gayle cracked 62 from 42 balls as West In­dies cruised to 175 for four off 20 overs af­ter opt­ing to bat first. Ris­ing star John­son Charles ham­mered 46 off 39 balls while ex­cit­ing all-rounder An­dre Rus­sell chipped in with a cameo 33 in the dy­ing stages. Open­er Dwayne Smith suf­fered his sec­ond fail­ure of the night when he fell for sev­en in the sec­ond over but Gayle and Charles com­bined to put on 100 from 73 balls.

The left-hand­ed Gayle struck two fours and six six­es while Charles stroked three fours and two six­es. Both bats­men fell with­in the space of 11 de­liv­er­ies but Rus­sell and Kieron Pol­lard (20) put on a hasty 51 from 25 balls for the fourth wick­et.

Rus­sell blast­ed two fours and three six­es in a love­ly 15-ball cameo. Gayle then grabbed three for 28 with his off-breaks and leg-spin­ner Samuel Badree, two for 13 to help re­strict the UWI side to 98 all out off 17.3 overs. Vet­er­an left-han­der Floyd Reifer, who led West In­dies in two Tests dur­ing the play­ers strike three years ago, top-scored with 31 from 20 balls. (CMC)