Last Updated: Sat, 06 Feb 2010 10:35
West Indies captain Chris Gayle is happy with his side's preparation as they face the daunting prospect of five ODIs with Australia.
The men from the Caribbean play the Aussies in the first of five one-day internationals in Melbourne on Sunday and Gayle's men warmed up for that match with a comprehensive 90-run victory over the prime minister's XI.
Gayle himself smashed 146 from just 89 balls, while Travis Dowlin (72) and Lendl Simmons (70 not out) also spent valuable time in the middle.
The Windies will be the underdogs for the five-match series, especially as Australia have just inflicted a nine-match international whitewash in all forms of the game on Pakistan.
But Gayle is pleased with the way things have gone for his under-strength side so far on tour, with both departments getting a decent work-out this week.
"This was a great start to the tour for us," he said. "This is what we wanted. We got a good pitch to play on and the players responded very well.
"I enjoyed my time out in the middle and I am also happy that some of the other players such as Travis Dowlin and Lendl Simmons also got good scores.
"We batted all the way down as well so overall we are happy with the performance.
"In the bowling, everyone got a feel. We did not want to give any one bowler too much work. We tried to let everyone get an opportunity and as a precaution we did not want anyone to have a heavy workload."
Gaye will not be able to call on the services of experienced players Dwayne Bravo, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Fidel Edwards, Jerome Taylor and Ramnaresh Sarwan who are all sidelined with injury and the skipper knows that there will be no cutting corners when it comes to facing Ricky Ponting's men.
He added: "Overall as a team we know we still have some work to do in the build-up to the first one-day international, so we have a few more days to go where we will put in some more work in the nets so we can be fully ready to face Australia on Sunday."