West In­dies cap­tain Chris Gayle has said he is ful­ly mo­ti­vat­ed for the up­com­ing lim­it­ed-overs se­ries against Aus­tralia. It's been a over a month since West In­dies re­turned home af­ter be­ing beat­en 2-0 in the three Test se­ries in Aus­tralia, but Gayle stayed be­hind to rep­re­sent Queens­land Bulls in the Twen­ty20 Big Bash. How­ev­er, he said he was fo­cused on com­ing out trumps in the five ODIs and two Twen­ty20 in­ter­na­tion­als. "I am feel­ing re­al­ly good. I'm hap­py to be back in the groove and rep­re­sent­ing the West In­dies," Gayle told CMC. "We are with­out two key bats­men, Shiv (Chan­der­paul) and (Ramnaresh) Sar­wan but this is a chance for oth­er play­ers to grab the op­por­tu­ni­ty and make a name. It will be a chal­leng­ing tour but I know we are ca­pa­ble of win­ning."

With in­juries al­so sidelin­ing bowlers Fi­del Ed­wards and Jerome Tay­lor, West In­dies have been forced to turn to more untest­ed play­ers. Fast bowler Ke­mar Roach has played just sev­en ODIs, while fel­low seam­er Ravi Ram­paul has played 36 games over a six-year span. An­oth­er pace­man Gavin Tonge has man­aged just five. How­ev­er, Gayle be­lieves the unit pos­sessed enough qual­i­ty and backed them to per­form against the in-form Aus­tralians. "The Aussies are a good team and they played well against Pak­istan, but they are beat­able," he said. "We have been watch­ing the se­ries and we have seen what the Aus­tralians have to of­fer.

"On our side we have a lot to of­fer. We have depth, and we have play­ers who are ca­pa­ble match-win­ners. Every­one knows what is re­quired." West In­dies have just one warm-up match be­fore the se­ries kicks off in Mel­bourne on Sun­day and Gayle said the team was tak­ing the tour game, against a Matthew Hay­den-led Prime Min­is­ter's XI at Manu­ka Oval to­day, very se­ri­ous­ly. "We know the Aussies will come hard and we know we have to be on the mon­ey," Gayle said. "We need a good start and we will be look­ing to start well against the Prime Min­is­ter's XI. This will be a very se­ri­ous game for us. We want a sol­id start and we want all the play­ers to be in the right frame of mind when we take to the field on Thurs­day." One play­er who will be miss­ing in to­day's match is all­rounder Dwayne Bra­vo.

The de­plet­ed West In­dies are wait­ing to learn whether Bra­vo will par­tic­i­pate in the se­ries. Bra­vo, who has been in the coun­try rep­re­sent­ing Vic­to­ria in the Twen­ty20 Big Bash, broke his right thumb while bat­ting against Tas­ma­nia on Jan­u­ary 15 and the in­jury could turn out to be more se­ri­ous than an­tic­i­pat­ed. The team's man­age­ment was wait­ing for the re­sults of a test on Bra­vo's fin­ger to de­ter­mine if he will re­main with the squad. West In­dies have re­turned to Aus­tralia for five ODIs and two Twen­ty20 in­ter­na­tion­als af­ter los­ing a three-Test se­ries in No­vem­ber-De­cem­ber last year. (AP)