KINGSTOWN–Open­er Lendl Sim­mons hit an un­beat­en 51 to steer West In­dies A to a con­vinc­ing five-wick­et vic­to­ry over Sri Lan­ka A in their sec­ond T20 crick­et match at the Arnos Vale com­plex in St Vin­cent yes­ter­day.

The Trinida­di­an smashed a bound­ary-stud­ded half cen­tu­ry as West In­dies A re­spond­ed with 83 for five, off 11.4 overs, chas­ing 82 post­ed by the Sri Lankans af­ter they were dis­missed in 18.1 overs.

Sim­mons hur­ried West In­dies to vic­to­ry and al­so post­ed his half cen­tu­ry with suc­ces­sive six­es, off Niroshan Dick­wella , as West In­dies reached what turned out to be an easy tar­get with eight overs to spare. Sim­mons knock came off 42 balls and in­clud­ed five six­es and three fours.

Cap­tain Dwayne Smith, who opened with Sim­mons, con­tributed 14 while the oth­er West In­dies bats­men dis­missed were Chris Barn­well, Nkrumah Bon­ner and An­dre Rus­sell.

Sri Lan­ka's open­ing bats­men Dick­wella and Udara Jaya­sun­dara were kept in ear­ly check by West In­dies open­ing bowlers, spin­ner Samuel Badree and pac­er Shan­non Gabriel, and nev­er re­cov­ered af­ter los­ing the first wick­et with three runs on the board.

Wick­ets fell reg­u­lar­ly as the vis­i­tors strug­gled against the West In­dies bowlers and af­ter nine overs, Sri Lan­ka were 31 for five.

The in­nings fold­ed as Smith had Madu­ra Lak­mal (11 runs) trapped LBW with the first ball of the 19th over and af­ter some event­ful ear­ly overs , West In­dies romped to vic­to­ry on the ag­gres­sive stroke­play of Sim­mons.

Off­spin­ner Ash­ley Nurse (3 for 15) and seam­er Kevon Coop­er (2 for 17) were the lead­ing bowlers for West In­dies.

To­day's match was the sec­ond of two T20 match­es in the se­ries. The first was rained out on Tues­day af­ter just three balls were bowled.

Sri Lan­ka A and West In­dies A will next meet in the first of three 50-over match­es in Grena­da, start­ing on Sun­day. (CMC)

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