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Shane Watson scored his maiden international hundred as Australia claimed a comprehensive seven-wicket victory over the West Indies to seal a one-day series win with two matches to play.
Ricky Ponting’s side claimed an unbeatable 3-0 lead in the five-match series after easily overhauling the target of 224 with 57 balls to spare.
Watson stroked a majestic 126 from 122 balls as he and Ponting (69 off 83 balls) put on 191 for the second wicket.
The Queensland allrounder, who was a late call-up for the series as Matt Hayden’s injury replacement, struck 15 fours and two sixes, with Michael Clarke (11 not out) and Andrew Symonds (9no) finishing off the win.
Brett Lee (1-36) earlier became the fastest bowler to 300 one-day international wickets with his dismissal of Darren Sammy late in the Windies innings, with Nathan Bracken (3-26) the pick of the Australian bowlers.
The Windies failed to capitalise on a great start as they stumbled from a position of power at 2-161 in the 33rd over, to be all out for 223 by the end of the 48th.
The home side’s lower order again crumbled, with the last five wickets falling for just 28 runs.
But just as much to blame was the failure of one of their top order to post a big score with skipper Chris Gayle (53), Xavier Marshall (35), Ramnaresh Sarwan (31) and Shivnarine Chanderpaul (32) all getting starts.
Luck was again not on the side of the Windies.
Gayle, after three massive sixes in his 54-ball innings, suffered the misfortune of being run out at the non-striker’s end when Mitchell Johnson got a fingertip to the ball in his follow through to end a blazing 86-run opening stand.
Dwayne Bravo (7) could also again consider himself unlucky to be given out lbw to Andrew Symonds after receiving a similarly questionable decision in the first one-dayer.
But there was no real excuse for the rest of the dismissals, as the Windies again folded.
Lee became just the 10th bowler to reach 300 wickets when he dismissed Sammy after the Windies allrounder skied a straight-forward return catch.
He is also just the second Australian to 300 one-day international scalps and the quickest all time to reach the milestone with his 171 games eclipsing the previous mark held by Waqar Younis – who required 186 to claim 300.
The Aussie spearhead had thought he had reached the magical figure a few overs earlier when he took a return catch off Denesh Ramdin.
But umpire Asad Rauf ruled the delivery a no-ball because of height, with Ramdin, standing on tip toes, skying the catch after connecting with the ball well above his head.
Lee then showed off soccer skills any players in today’s Germany-Spain Euro 2008 final would have been proud of to run out Daren Powell.
Powell had taken off for a quick single after dropping the ball near his feet, but after being turned back by Edwards slipped, with Lee brilliantly side-footing the ball into the stumps.
Luke Ronchi was impressive behind the stumps in just his second ODI, taking a brilliant one-handed catch off Shane Watson, another sharp chance off the spin of Andrew Symonds, and then a stumping while keeping up to the stumps to Nathan Bracken.
The one-day triumph follows Australia’s 2-0 victory in the Test series.
The final two games of the tour will be in St Kitts on Friday and Sunday.
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