HARARE – West In­dies Un­der-19s’ hopes of reach­ing the semi­fi­nal of the ICC Men’s Un­der-19 Crick­et World Cup suf­fered a ma­jor set­back when they went down by 22 runs to de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Aus­tralia in their cru­cial Su­per Six, Group 1 en­counter in Zim­bab­we on Wednes­day.

Need­ing a vic­to­ry to boost their chances of reach­ing the fi­nal four, the re­gion­al team pro­duced a be­low-par bowl­ing ef­fort af­ter send­ing the Aussies in­to bat at the Harare Sports Club, as cap­tain Oliv­er Peake scored an im­pres­sive cen­tu­ry to pow­er his side to a for­mi­da­ble 314 for sev­en in their 50 overs.

Through the ef­forts of Zachary Carter and skip­per Joshua Dorne, who scored con­trast­ing half-cen­turies, West In­dies put them­selves in a strong po­si­tion to pull off a mem­o­rable win, but fal­tered at the death to fin­ish on 292 for nine.

With the re­sult, the un­beat­en Aus­tralians ad­vanced to the semi­fi­nal stage of the tour­na­ment, leav­ing the Windies need­ing a mir­a­cle due to their poor net run rate.

They are cur­rent­ly tied on four points with Afghanistan, who are cur­rent­ly in sec­ond place on net run rate ahead of Sri Lan­ka.

How­ev­er, the Windies would need both Afghanistan, who is set to play Ire­land in their fi­nal Su­per Six match on Fri­day, and Sri Lan­ka, who take on South Africa on Thurs­day, to suf­fer heavy de­feats if they are to have any chance of pro­gress­ing in the tour­na­ment.

They will rue a missed op­por­tu­ni­ty against Aus­tralia, who, for the first time in the com­pe­ti­tion, looked head­ed for de­feat.

Need­ing to score at over six runs and over, Carter and Tanez Fran­cis gave the Windies a whirl­wind start in an open­ing part­ner­ship of 88 runs, while go­ing at eight runs an over.

Carter was es­pe­cial­ly bru­tal on his way to reg­is­ter­ing the fourth fastest half-cen­tu­ry of the tour­na­ment, pulling Will Mala­jczuk to the mid­wick­et bound­ary off the 29th ball he faced.

Aus­tralia need­ed some luck to make the break­through when Fran­cis missed a full toss from Charles Lach­mund and was ad­judged lbw, de­spite the ball seem­ing­ly head­ing past the leg stump.

Carter and Jew­el An­drew then added 35 runs in just over three overs, be­fore Carter un­nec­es­sar­i­ly tried to heave the first de­liv­ery from legspin­ner Naden Cooray over the leg­side and was bowled for 64 off 42 balls, in­clu­sive of sev­en fours and four six­es.

His dis­missal brought Dorne to the crease, and to­geth­er with An­drew, they main­tained the mo­men­tum to car­ry the score to 171 for two af­ter 26 overs.

The rein­tro­duc­tion of pac­er Hay­den Schiller reaped im­me­di­ate div­i­dends for Aus­tralia, with his york­er pierc­ing An­drew’s de­fence to bowl him for 44.

Dorne then found a use­ful part­ner in Ku­nal Tilokani, with the two adding 68 runs for the fourth wick­et. Dur­ing that part­ner­ship, Dorne reached his first half-cen­tu­ry of the tour­na­ment off 80 balls.

But just as the two looked to ac­cel­er­ate, Tilokani edged Lach­mund be­hind to be caught for 35 off 42 balls and with just sev­en runs added, Schiller re­turned to bowl Dorne for 62 off 97 balls, to leave the Windies 246 for five in the 43rd over.

Jonathan van Lange and Shaquan Belle tried their best, but the re­quired run rate, which crept up to over 12 runs, proved too much for the Windies to over­come and they lost their four wick­ets for sev­en runs in the last 14 balls.

Lach­mund end­ed with 4-66, Aryan Shar­ma took 2-47 and Schiller 2-54.

Ear­li­er, Peake’s ef­fort, along with a half-cen­tu­ry from Nitesh Samuel and im­por­tant knocks by Will Mala­jczuk and Alex Lee Young, helped Aus­tralia post a mam­moth to­tal.

Mala­jczuk, who scored 48 off 30 balls and Samuel, who made 56 from 74 balls, shared an open­ing stand of 73 in nine overs that proved to be the foun­da­tion.

Fast bowler R’Jai Git­tens re­moved Mala­jczuk and Steven Hogan, who made four, in quick suc­ces­sion to leave Aus­tralia 84 for two af­ter 11 overs.

But Peake, who scored 109 off 117 balls, first added 85 with Samuel and then 69 with Lee Young, who scored 45, to frus­trate the Windies’ bowlers.

For the Windies, Ja­keem Pol­lard took 2-37 and Git­tens 2-45.

CMC

Sum­marised scores

AUS­TRALIA U19s 314-7 in 50 overs (Oliv­er Peake 109, Nitesh Samuel 56, Will Mala­jczuk 48. Alex Lee Young 45, Jay­den Drap­er 29; Ja­keem Pol­lard 2-37, R’Jai Git­tens 2-45).

WEST IN­DIES U19s 292-9 in 50 overs (Zachary Carter 64, Joshua Dorne 62, Jew­el An­drew 44, Ku­nal Tilokani 35, Tane Fran­cis 27, Jonathan van Lange 26, Shaquan Belle 13; Charles Lach­mund 4-66, Aryan Shar­ma 2-47, Hay­den Schiller 2-54).

Toss: West In­dies U19s elect­ed to field.

Re­sult: Aus­tralia Un­der-19s won by 22 runs.

Play­er-of-the-Match: Oliv­er Peake.

Um­pires: Gra­ham Lloyd, Nitin Bathi.

TV Um­pire: Viren­der Shar­ma.

Re­serve Um­pire: Rus­sell War­ren.

Match Ref­er­ee: Dean Cosker.