West Indies had a dominating victory by 7 wickets and 15 overs to spare over United Aram Emirates in the first ODI of the series on Monday (5 June) at Sharjah Cricket Stadium.

UAE won the toss and chose to bat first. But soon their decision came as a curse as they lost their opener Muhammad Waseem for a 2 ball duck. Also the other opener Aryansh Sharma was knocked over by Dominic Drakes for a 5 ball 5. After the departure of these two, number three batter Arvind and Rameez Shahzad came to revive the innings.

Arvind scored a sedate 40 off 77 deliveries before seeing himself in the hands of WI skipper Shai Hope. Whil Rameez was trapped infront of his pads from a beauty off Roston Chase. Asif Khan scored 27 off 41 and Mustafa consumed 23 balls to score only 7.

It was Ali Naseer's freak innings which helped UAE getting some momentum. Naseer scored a fluent 58 off only 52 balls with a strike rate of 111.54. Lower order contributed with 9,11,8 and UAE finished their innings at 202-10.

Keemo Paul was the pick of the bowlers as he picked up 3 wickets conceding 34 runs. While Dominic Drakes, Cariah and Odean Smith chipped in with 2 wickets and Roston Chase scalped one.

Chasing this meagre total, opener Johnson Charles smacked a few in the powerplay tho he couldn’t long his innings as he went back to the pavilion scoring 24 off 19 balls. But his partner Brandon King didn't stop. He and Brooks had a fantastic combination and stitched a 91 run partnership in 2nd wicket.

Once King got himself settled with the crease, he counter - attacked spin and pace showing no mercy and notched up his maiden ODI ton.
At the end, Shai Hope needed only 4 balls to finish the game as he smashed back to back sixes to finish the game on a high and win the match by 7 wickets with 15 overs to spare to go 1-0 ahead of the series.