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David Warner lights up rain-marred Test with quick ton

The Australian opener scored 122 off 103 balls in the otherwise dead rubber.

Sydney: Australian opener David Warner added a welcome postscript to a match destined to be remembered for wet weather by scoring an unbeaten, quick-fire century on the last day of the drawn third test against the West Indies.

Warner made 122 off 103 balls, with 12 fours and two sixes, and Australia reached 176-2 before both captains agreed to end the match midway through the final session on Thursday.

Read: Australia thump West Indies by 177 runs to claim series

"It's disappointing we can't control the weather," said Warner. "I'm just extremely happy the fans got to see some cricket."

"Obviously it was a long first innings by the West Indies and we tried to go out there and be as positive as we could. We tried to score some runs at a nice rate to give the fans something to watch."

West Indies captain Jason Holder declined the opportunity to declare before play - despite an offer by Australia captain Steve Smith of a double declaration to set the game up for a possible result - after persistent rain had curtailed play on day two and washed out days three and four.

"Unfortunately they didn't come to the party, I offered him 370 in 70 overs, which I thought was pretty generous," Smith said to reporters after the test. "It would take some good batting to get that on a day five SCG wicket, but they weren't up for the challenge unfortunately."

The West Indies had been bowled out shortly before lunch for 330 in its first innings, with Denesh Ramdin scoring 62 after starting his innings on day one. Jomel Warrican took both wickets in Australia's 38-over innings, having Joe Burns caught by a leaping Kemar Roach at mid-on for 26 and Mitchell Marsh caught at slip for 21.

Also read: Australia beat West Indies by an innings and 212 runs in Hobart Test

Peter Nevill was seven not out in his first innings of the series.

Having waited five days to get to the crease, Warner wasted little time asserting himself on the West Indies attack. He reached his half century from 42 balls with a six off Warrican and set his sights on his first century of the series after the tea break.

Warner reached the milestone with an inside edge off Warrican that went to fine leg and celebrated with his trademark leap into the air, punching his fist skyward before saluting his teammates and the crowd of 6,865 who took advantage of free entry to the SCG on the final day.

After a delay of 45 minutes at the start of the day as the pitch was uncovered for the first time in three days, the West Indies lower-order batsmen defied Australia's attack for an hour and a half as the visitors recorded their highest innings total of the series. Ramdin was the third West Indies batsman to pass a half-century in the innings before swiping at a wide ball by Steve O'Keefe and being caught by Steve Smith at slip.

Nathan Lyon dismissed Roach (15) and O'Keefe had Jerome Taylor caught for 13 to end the innings.

O'Keefe finished with 3-63 in his first test in Australia. Both teams wore black armbands in memory of Baljit Chandrika, father of West Indies batsman Rajendra Chandrika, who passed away overnight. Opening batsman Chandrika featured in the first two tests of the series before sustaining a groin injury in the warm-up for the third test.

Australia won the three-match series 2-0 and retained the Frank Worrell Trophy after victories in the first two tests in Hobart and Melbourne.

"We started in Hobart and didn't play well at all," Holder said. "We showed improvement in Melbourne and we had to come here to improve as well.

"We just needed to take it step by step, there's no situation where we could just jump from losing Test matches to just winning Test matches, especially like good opposition like Australia."

Adam Voges was voted player of the series after a double century in Hobart and another hundred in Melbourne.

( Source : AP )
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