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Chris Gayle's typically punishing 83 off 79 balls, followed by Ryan Hinds' telling all-round performance of 68 and six wickets, led the West Indies `A' team to victory over Gloucestershire yesterday.

The West Indies compiled 279 before they were all out with two balls of their 50 overs remaining and bowled the county team out for 235 in 45 overs to win on the last match of their England tour by 44 runs.

Test opener Gayle struck a six and 12 fours to give the West Indians a powerful start after Daren Ganga batted on winning the toss.

Ganga, caught at square-leg, and left-hander Devon Smith, taken at point, went cheaply.

But Runako Morton (41 from 40 balls with seven fours) and the left-handed Hinds (68 off 86 balls with two sixes and five fours) took their cue from Gayle to revive the innings.

After Gayle was dismissed by England international Jeremy Snape, Hinds and Dwayne Bravo (38 off 43 balls with three fours) added 82 and, even though the last six wickets went down for 38, the West Indies posted a challenging total.

Gloucestershire started with two openers with West Indian connections: James Pearson, 18, who plays club cricket for Bristol West Indies and Tim Hancock, whose mother is Barbadian.

But Pearson was bowled without scoring by the pacy Tino Best who also bowled Chris Taylor. The experienced Hancock fell to Jermaine Lawson for 27 before a fourth-wicket partnership of 111 between Matthew Windows and Snape renewed Gloucestershire's hopes.

As the required scoring rose to over eight an over, Windows and Snape fell within six runs of each other to Hinds, who added four more wickets as Gloucestershire subsided in spite of Alex Gidman's run-a-ball 36 and bowling that gave up 12 wides and 11 no-balls.

The West Indies ended the tour with five wins (over Ireland, British Universities, Sussex, Yorkshire and Gloucestershire) and two losses (to Sri Lanka and Kent) in the one-day matches.

They had one win, one loss, one tie and three draws in the first-class matches.

They fly to Toronto today for matches against Canada before returning home next week.

© Barbados Nation