Naz Ya­coob

West In­dies crick­eters led by open­ing bats­man Chris Gayle reg­is­tered a com­fort­able 18-run-win against T&T in the 'Balls of Fire' Twen­ty/20 match at the Queen's Park Oval in Port-of-Spain, last night. Be­fore a sold out crowd at the lead­ing Test venue in the Caribbean, T&T un­der the guid­ance of bat­ting leg­end Bri­an Lara, won the toss and in­sert­ed the op­po­si­tion. West In­dies tal­lied 127 for nine in the al­lot­ted 20 overs, with Guyanese open­ing bats­man Sew­nar­ine Chat­ter­goon hit­ting 20 off 17 balls with a six and a four. Oth­er good con­tri­bu­tions came from De­von Smith with 18 and guest play­er Daron Cruik­shank al­so with 18.

Dis­card­ed West In­dies left-arm spin­ner Dave Mo­hammed was the lead­ing bowler with three for 15, while fast bowler Ravi Ram­paul chipped in with two for 22.

In re­sponse, T&T were dis­missed for 109 with three balls in the con­test re­main­ing. Daren Gan­ga top-scored with 29 off 25 balls which in­clud­ed two fours and a five. None of the oth­er bats­men of­fered re­sis­tance to the prob­ing pace and spin at­tack with the ex­cep­tion of Lara with 16 and Kieron Pol­lard al­so with 16. Gayle was the top bowler for his team with three for 20, while Di­nanath Ram­nar­ine (2-13) and Sul­lie­man Benn (2-14) had two wick­ets apiece.

Lara showed glimpses of his el­e­gance that made him one of the world's top bats­man duri­ing his stay at the crease, which spanned 33 min­utes and 27 balls. He re­ceived a rous­ing ova­tion af­ter his dis­missal when he was caught by Cruik­shank at the long-on fence of Benn's bowl­ing. An­oth­er play­er who had the jam-packed crowd in a fren­zy was na­tion­al foot­baller Dwight Yorke who opened the bat­ting and scored a dis­ci­plined nine runs off 17 de­liv­er­ies. Yorke al­so had a stint be­hind the stumps when T&T field­ed.� Sev­er­al West In­dies play­ers who missed the se­ries against Bangladesh were on show. Broth­ers Dwayne and Dar­ren Bra­vo, and wick­et­keep­er De­nesh Ramdin all played for T&T.�