St Georges (Grenada), June02 : The West Indies humbled Australia by nine wickets at Queen's Park here to finish the one-day international cricket series on an upswing with three consecutive victories over the World Cup champions.
The jaded Australians had already clinched the series by sweeping the opening four games, but Brian Lara's team looked more like victors before a celebrating home crowd yesterday. Wavell Hinds was again the tormentor with his second consecutive century to lead the West Indies to a comprehensive victory with six and a half overs to spare. Hinds, who was not part of the original one-day squad, scored an unbeaten 103 off 130 balls to finish the series with 352 runs from five innings to be named 'Man of the Series'.
Lara finished the match with a flourish, plastering off-spinner Darren Lehmann for three successive sixes to remain unbeaten on 75 as the West Indies reached 249 for one in reply to Australia's struggling 247 for eight.

Chris Gayle was judged man of the match with his 60 off 68 -- the only West Indian wicket to fall -- combined with his career-best odi bowling figures of 5-46 off 10 overs in Australia's innings.

The euphoric victory buoyed West Indies cricket after their 3-1 loss in the preceding test series to Australia and their run of four defeats in the first half of the ODI series.

While the West Indies regrouped after losing the series in Port of Spain, the form of Ricky Ponting's World Cup champions progressively fell away after the end of their record 21-game unbeaten run with signs of a lack of motivation seeping into the team.