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HARARE – West In­dies Un­der-19s’ hopes of reach­ing the semi­fi­nal of the ICC Men’s Un­der-19 Crick­et World Cup suf­fered a ma­jor set­back when they went down by 22 runs to de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Aus­tralia in their cru­cial Su­per Six, Group 1 en­counter in Zim­bab­we on Wednes­day.

Need­ing a vic­to­ry to boost their chances of reach­ing the fi­nal four, the re­gion­al team pro­duced a be­low-par bowl­ing ef­fort af­ter send­ing the Aussies in­to bat at the Harare Sports Club, as cap­tain Oliv­er Peake scored an im­pres­sive cen­tu­ry to pow­er his side to a for­mi­da­ble 314 for sev­en in their 50 overs.

Through the ef­forts of Zachary Carter and skip­per Joshua Dorne, who scored con­trast­ing half-cen­turies, West In­dies put them­selves in a strong po­si­tion to pull off a mem­o­rable win, but fal­tered at the death to fin­ish on 292 for nine.