Opening batsman Chris Gayle hit a powerful unbeaten century Wednesday to lead the West Indies to a 10-wicket win over Bangladesh and a berth in the main round of the ICC Champions Trophy cricket tournament.
Gayle smashed three sixes with one landing on the roof of the stand to score 104 off 118 balls as the West Indies made 164 without losing a wicket in 36.4 overs after dismissing Bangladesh for 161 in 46.3 overs.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul also timely paced the run-chase with Gayle and remained unbeaten on 52 with six fours.
``The main thing was to come out with a big win and put some sort of a distance between the two teams,'' said a confident looking West Indian captain Brian Lara at the end of the match.
``Definitely there was certain difference of a class (between the two teams) and we showed that,'' he added.
West Indies had earlier beaten Zimbabwe in its opening qualifying match by nine wickets and would meet Sri Lanka in the last qualifier on Saturday _ a match that would decide the top two positions from the qualifying stage of the biennial tournament.
West Indies and Sri Lanka would join six other teams in the main round. World No. 1 Australia, England and India are placed in Group A when the Champions Trophy properly gets underway on Oct. 15, while Group B comprises Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand.
Gayle and Chanderpaul easily paced the West Indies run-chase under lights as none of the Bangladesh bowlers posed problems with either their pace or spin.
Gayle showed a glimpse of his hard-hitting soon after completing his half century off 78 balls and completed his 13th century in one-day cricket consuming further 38 deliveries and hitting 11 fours and three sixes in his undefeated knock.
Earlier, after electing to bat first, Bangladesh failed to capitalize on a blazing 85-run second wicket parntership off 93 balls between Aftab Ahmed (59) and Shahriar Nafees (38) as eight of their batsmen failed to score in double figures.
``It was a bad game for us,'' conceded Bangladesh captain Habibul Bashar.
``I feel it was a mixture of good bowling and bad batting from us which is really not acceptable as we were 95 for one at one stage,'' he added.
Medium fast Dwayne Bravo ran through the Bangladesh tail-end and took career best 3-14 off his disciplined 10-over unchanged spell. It included an athletic, low one-handed catch off his follow through that dismissed Mashrafe Mortaza (7).
Ahmed had an opportunity when Marlon Samuels could not judge the hook shot and dropped him on 15 in the deep. Ahmed hit the aggrieved bowler _ paceman Jerome Taylor _ for a six and then flicked left-arm seamer Ian Bradshaw for maximum runs at square leg.
Ahmed took 40 balls to complete his half century with seven boundaries and two sixes before Bangladesh lost its way and four wickets tumbled in as many overs.
Nafees was smartly caught by Chris Gayle in the lone slip position off Samuels' gentle off-spin in the 20th over and Corey Collymore struck twice in the next over.
Collymore _ the only change into the West Indies side that crushed Zimbabwe by nine wickets on Sunday _ uprooted Saqibul Hasan's off-stump and Bashar was out lbw off the next delivery to record his second successive duck of the tournament.
Ahmed attempted to hit Samuels for a six over long on, only to see Shivnarine Chanderpaul take a well judged catch that gave Samuels his second wicket of the innings as Bangladesh lost five wickets for 107 by the half way mark.
Bangladesh retained the same playing XI that went down by 37 runs in its opening qualifier against Sri Lanka last Saturday.
Zimbabwe which had lost its both games _ against the West Indies and Sri Lanka _ will next meet Bangladesh in the last qualifier on Friday.
