 Yet, starting this fabulous Friday with cricket, the West Indies are one down in their three match one day international series against Australia after suffering a comprehensive eight wicket defeat at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Friday morning Caribbean time. The West Indies managed to crawl to a respectable 231 before Australia eased to 232 for two. Gerrard Morrisili has the recap. West Indies looking to follow up their monumental test of victory with a good performance in the first ODI against Australia at the MCG, but they soon realised it was a different format. debutant Xavier Bartlett on fire picking up grades on Alec Atheneus to leave the Caribbean side at 2 for 17. A lot rested on Shea Hope's shoulders, but an uncharacteristically loose drive was his demise, giving Bartlett his third. West Indies 3 for 37 and 22 runs later, Kevin Hodge drove to mid on, Cameron Green with the wicket, substitute McKinsey Harvey with the catch. West Indies needed stability and Casey Carty and Rostin Chase provided it as both scored half centuries in a 121 50 wicket partnership. Carty, who batted at three, was first to his milestone. And he managed to sneak through does Casey Carty to bring up 50 at the MCG, his 31 day international cricket, his second in a row, he's kept things going for the West Indies with wickets falling around him early. What about it? And Chase followed shortly after. Quicker one, Chase seizes on it, a way through mid wicket, fine shot in a fine 50, his first one day international against Australia, he brings up a half century, his fourth in the format. It's a great partnership now that's worked 96 between him and Carty. But Adam Zampa broke the partnership, getting rid of Chase with a score in five for 169. And then Carty's demise came via the run out route, the right hander producing a career best 88 of 108 deliveries, which included six fours and two sixes. And from six for 193, the West Indies added a further 38 runs before being dismissed for 231 and 48.4 overs, Bartlett, the pick of the Aussie bowlers with the player of the match performance of a four for 17. The West Indies needed early wickets if they were to stand a chance of defending 232 and they got one Matthew Ford and nicking off the out of form Travis head for four. But his opening partner, Josh English, was brutal, smashing boundaries all around the park. The 28 year old wicket keeper Baxman brought up his half century in just 28 deliveries behind eight fours and a six. His dismissal for 65 came one over after the power play, thanks to review, the score two for 83. But that was the last debate of success for the Windies as Cam Green and Steve Smith took the game away from the Caribbean side completely. The two right handers crunched an unbeaten third wicket partnership of 149, Smith top scoring with 79 while Green ended on 77 to propel the Aussies to two for 232 as they won with 11 overs and three deliveries to spear. Starting a tour like that, you would want to take the first win but unfortunately we got to go back to the drawing board now, we still got two more games to go so we got some room to improve. As you see, we lost too many wickets in the power play, I didn't think we showed as much intent that we needed to at the beginning of the innings. I think that would obviously put their bowlers or at least change their mindset in terms of where they need to bowl at us. We probably need to show a bit more intent and just be up for the fight man. Yeah, there you have it from the West Indies captain Shay Hope to end that report from Gerard Morrissealy. Before I even get fuzz in on this discussion, I have to speak about one major disappointment that I have with this West Indies 50 overside, they didn't bat 50 overs and we see it so often with this team and you're going to hear it from me a lot because every time we don't bat 50 overs, I will bring it up on this show. Fazir Mohamed is standing by to chat with us about this first one day international. Fuzz, how are you doing? Not too bad, well I don't know what is your issue and the same way that my issue is always the amount of cricket played by the big nations with the long series compared to what the West Indies and other minor nations are left to play. So now I know where we stand. Well there you go Fuzz, fantastic. How would you assess this first one day international? West Indies dominated? Comprehensively I would play it but contributed to their own demise and I think the captain alluded to it. Too many wickets lost early on but it's not just the wickets lost Ricardo but it's the manner in which they were lost. I mean Justin Green really couldn't do much about that delivery that got it. Beautiful delivery from the debutante Bartlett but look at the dismissal of the captain and before that Alec Athenez. Athenez driving through the offside, feet on leg stump. Obviously you're not going to meddle it, edging through. And then uncharacteristically the shot played by Sheho. You hardly ever seen playing a shot like that. He's losing his balance completely. The back foot is swinging towards leg. Even as he's trying to force that off drive which is totally uncharacteristic because it may be felt it necessary to try to dominate the bowlers and make a gift of his wicket. And then of course the run out of Casey Carty. We look at that, watch that shot, I look where his back foot is going and really launching at the delivery which is again not what you would associate with him because he usually is probably one of the best exponents of the cover drive and it didn't happen this time around. And after that very good partnership between Casey Carty and Roston Chase, we saw that needless run out of Carty. So again, Australia were always going to have that total well within range but you look at that dismissal again and you just add to the tally of dismissals in which the West Indies didn't have their own course. Yeah and it started from the top order as the top order collapsing Alec Athenez. He did not fire in the test of course in our pre-match preview here on the Sportsmax so we said okay he didn't fire in the test that's all right he's really good where ODI is concerned you know we spoke to Nikhil about it and we said you know we were expecting Alec Athenez to perform in the ODI's. It's only one match but I'm going to ask you the question do you expect to see him in the second match? I do, I think he's a quality player. I think he's someone and we saw that from his first test match never mind the heavy defeat suffered by the West Indies in his native Dominica we saw a player who has quality of course he started as one decry with a half century against the UAE which is really a lightly regarded opposition but I think he is someone who needs to recognize that he has the ability but must bring cricketing sense to his shot making in the same way that I made the point during the the course of our discussion about the two test matches that is not good enough to get to 30 odd 40 odd even getting just past 50 and then mentally relaxing. You're talking about elite level and the West Indies are a long long way from elite level 232 is never going to cut it one secondly you're playing against the world champions so you know even if they've rested their top players the the next set they are keen they are desperate to perform they're going to give it everything so you've got to expect that you've got he's he's been in Australia long enough to know the pace the bounce and so on and that's why I was disappointed in the way he got all feet planted on leg stump driving through the offside and edging to the slips that that's that's a fundamental error. Yeah for sure we really have to commend though Kasey Kanti and Rostin Chase for how they were able to steady the ship and ensure that you know at least we got to some sort of respectable total that 88 runs from Kasey Kanti it comprised of two sixes and six fours and then we had Rostin Chase chipping in with 59 your assessment of how they went about business. An important partnership a very good partnership of course again we're comparing with the elites we can't fool ourselves and say well you know we're only comparing with the middle of the road if the West Indies want to improve that's who you have to compare yourselves with in the same way you compare yourselves with you say in both 9.58 as unreachable as it may seem to many in the sprinting game the point is that yes it's a good partnership it's steady the West Indies innings it pushed them forward but they've got to learn as time goes on as the West Indies start to rebuild towards qualification for the 2027 World Cup that you've also got to be able to up the pace because 230 to 240 to 250 doesn't cut it anymore it's certainly not in Australia big grounds you don't have to get many boundaries with the they can run you ragged by getting twos and threes and even an all run four depending on where it goes in the outfield so it's important yes to get these runs as you see him raising the bad end the pity that he wasn't able to go on to get a hundred with that run out and and really the error there was from hidden watch calling him through from non-existent single but it's it's a difficult challenge we do that we're not pretending that it's easy they can be easily done but as I said if you're comparing yourselves with the very best in the format you've got to recognize that even as you're stabilizing even as you're consolidating there has to be a level of acceleration that requires both confidence skill and competence yeah fans you just referenced something that we're discussed when we were previewing the series the fact that because of the depth of australian cricket their fringe players are likely to be hitting the ground running uh zavia Bartlett was outstanding last night how impressed were you with the 25 year old very impressed but but again not surprised and as you said it lands it's the the same situation as in the great heady of the west indies where the second strength players as happened with the kary paka hiatus were able to compete with their opponents were able to go away from home and fight very hard against india who are their their full strength team the point i'm making and that that you were alluding to is that it's a very competitive environment in australia there are a lot of openness sitting down in australia wondering why did they choose steve smith instead of one of them and now we know after that 91 not out even though it was an a losing effort at the gabbard so here you have these younger fast bowlers or they're not so young like shawn abad who many will recall was unfortunately the bowler who was in inaction when philip hughes sadly died in 2014 with a really free situation and it took him quite some time to recover emotionally from that which you can fully understand so again you've got players at different stages in their careers but all desperate to fill the boots of the likes of come in stark and here's a way yeah and fast i want to mention something quickly here because i'm a little tired of some of these cliches here when you know people are talking sporty here about ticking boxes and small margins but in referencing some points you you're forced to make them and the small margin is the one i want to talk about now because you said it earlier on the i would have to call it a brain freeze with hayden walsh taking that single punching the ball firmly to short midweek it the feeler wasn't deep short midweek it and took off for a single and it speaks to small margins just moments of doing the wrong things because i suspect that if that didn't happen and carti went on to make a hundred he'd probably have quit his strike rate after that and you know he could have scored a big hundred and given the Australians something better to chase having seen the run chase it seems evident that the Aussies might still have won but certainly that for me was the most disappointing moment of the night indeed and and and that's the point last you know because we always pointed to these things and say what could have been and and generally as as we we often hear the discussion in tennis there really isn't much difference as far as quality for example between in tennis between your number one and your number 100 however the issue is consistency consistent excellence and that's a phrase we've used very often in our discussions about Wesley Triggan aspiring to achieve a level of consistent excellence where silly mistakes like that don't happen that you don't have a needless runout which is totally within your control you can talk about an unplayable delivery like what Justin Graves had to face you could talk about many other things what the quality of that third wicked partnership with Steve Smith and Cameron Green but when you contribute to share thoughtlessness and carelessness to a needless dismissal you you really are widening those margins rather than narrowing the margins yeah Farz I just love when you use those tennis analogies thank you very much ahead of Davis Coffaction tomorrow but the second one-day international between Weston is in Australia will be Saturday night 10 30 p.m 11 30 Eastern Caribbean time um any changes that you would make going into that one I wouldn't necessarily make changes because I think this is a rebuilding process once again Ricardo and I think players need to be given a fair opportunity Justin Graves was put in at the top of the order and he got an unplayable delivery do you drop him because of that I think it's reasonable to think that player should be given a fair enough opportunity to prove their worth if we're really going to come up with a solid nucleus that can build towards getting to the World Cup of 2027 because again we've just endured the humiliation the two-time champions the champions are the first two World Cups of not qualifying for a World Cup so so that in itself should be some sort of impetus for us to those players who may be missed out today missed out on the chance to get a good score missed out on the fact that they were ragged with their bowling were all over the place to really tighten up and really send a message that they're really keen and committed to be part of a World Cup team yeah I completely agree with you Farz although I do suspect that Azari Joseph may be brought back into the side for that second one-day international thanks Farz we'll chat again early next week that will be off to the second one-day and ahead of the third one-day international on Tuesday take care and have a great weekend you too take care everybody all right we'll go to a break