WINDIES BATS FIRE

The West Indies today followed a fine first day bowling performance with an even better batting display as the XXXX Gold Queensland Bulls.

The great Brian Lara might not have appeared as scheduled, with West Indies team management electing to give the master left-hander more time to recover from a jarred little finger suffered while fielding on the first day.

But it mattered little as openers Devon Smith and Chris Gayle enjoyed the opportunity for an extended stint in the centre wicket to steer the tourists to 3-252 at stumps, trailing the Bulls first innings by 71.

The diminutive Smith and rangy Gayle were comfortable against a Bulls attack that tried hard to extract a favourable edge from the excellent batting strip.

Gayle scored a typically hard-hitting 58 while Smith hit 21 boundaries in his commanding knock of 115.

Smith was dropped at first slip by Martin Love when he was on 43 off leg-spinner Ryan Le Loux but he and Gayle combined for a stand of 130 before wicketkeeper Chris Hartley dismissed Gayle (58) with a tidy leg-side catch off Le Loux.

Hartley also produced dapper glovework off allrounder Andrew Symonds to end vice-captain Sarwan s brisk 37 off 32 balls with a leg-side stumping.

After a delayed start due to an overnight storm, the Windies made up for lost time with some entertaining batting that extracted a toll from all the Bulls bowlers bar Andrew Symonds (1-17 from 11 overs).