Chris Gayle failed with the bat but struck with his tame off-breaks as the West Indies secured just their second win of a chastening World Cup campaign against Afghanistan yesterday.
The Caribbean side scored 311 for six in Leeds and although the Afghans put up a brave fight, they ultimately went down by 23 runs.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Gayle trapped Afghanistan top-scorer Ikram Alikhil lbw for 86 in the 36th over to put a huge dent in their slim hopes of victory.
“It’s good to get over the line, we’ve had some close encounters where we didn’t,” said West Indies captain Jason Holder.
“Overall at this tournament, inconsistency let us down, in all three departments,” he added. “Our fielding has to improve a lot.”
Despite the victory, West Indies remain second-bottom of the 10-team table.
Afghanistan have flickered during only their second World Cup but head home with a dispiriting nine defeats out of nine.
The West Indies, who smashed 111 runs of the last 10 overs, had captain Holder and Nicholas Pooran to thank for their acceleration after solid contributions from Evin Lewis (58), man-of-the-match Shai Hope (77) and Shimron Hetmyer (39).
In reply, Alikhil put on 133 for the second wicket with Rahmat Shah (62) and there were contributions from Najibullah Zadran and Asghar Afghan but ultimately Afghanistan did not have the batting firepower to get them over the line.
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