Gayle and Fletcher blast past Australia

West Indies 172 for 3 (Gayle 88, Fletcher 53) beat Australia 169 for 7 (Warner 63, David Hussey 27, Bravo 2-31) by seven wickets

Scorecard and ball-by-ball details How they were out

	Chris Gayle hit perhaps the biggest six seen at The Oval, during his 50-ball 88 © Getty Images

Don't call this an upset. Twenty20 is where it is at for West Indies, by their captain's admission, and they have copped a fair amount of flak for that comment and their subsequent poor performances in more traditional forms of cricket. So there was a sense of anticipation over how they would fare in their "preferred" format. Come match day in the Group of Death, and West Indies, and Chris Gayle, turned up for the first time in two months. They fielded pathetically but that characteristic trait was sandwiched between superb opening bowling and explosive batting.

Australia ended the match as they entered it - yet to beat West Indies in this format. Their previous meeting was a similar comprehensive defeat, by seven wickets in Barbados. This, though, was a full 20-over contest on a belter of a pitch that was flat and fast. West Indies still had 4.1 overs to spare in the end.

The pace off the surface worked for both the West Indies bowlers and batsmen. While Jerome Taylor and Fidel Edwards used the briskness and clever variations to take early wickets, the ball traveled as fast off the bats of Gayle and Andre Fletcher as it came on to them.

West Indies took the lead right from the first over of the match, bowled by Taylor. That over had everything: the outswinger, the slower ball, the slower bouncer, sharp straight delivery, and two wickets. But for three wides Australia would have been 0 for 2.