1st ODI: Brandon King hits hundred as West Indies beats UAE in Sharjah

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The UAE fought hard, but in the end its efforts were not enough to stop the West Indies from winning the first game of the three-match one-day series at the Sharjah Cricket Stadium on Sunday.

Opener Brandon King scored a brilliant 112 off 112 balls as the visiting team chased down the target of 203 in 35.2 overs.

Earlier, pacer Keemo Paul returned with figures of 3/34 as the West Indies restricted the home team to 202 all out in 47.1 overs.

Ali Naseer (58 off 52 balls) and Vriitya Aravind (40 off 77 balls) contributed with the bat in contrasting styles, but they found no support from the other batters.

The seven-wicket win gave the West Indies the perfect start in the three-match series, a warm-up event for both teams before the ICC World Cup qualifiers (June 18-July 9) in Zimbabwe.

It was also the perfect start for Daren Sammy as the new head coach of the West Indies white-ball teams.

"They all bowled well and I was happy with the execution. I don't think there were devils in the surface but credit needs to be given to the bowlers," West Indies captain Shai Hope said before praising centurion King.

"King is an exceptional player and someone who I thought would've scored a lot more runs early in his career. But happy for him. He saw the opportunity to take the game forward and happy to see him get his first hundred today."

King was well supported by Shamarh Brooks who scored 44 off 58 balls.

Rohan Mustafa (1/22), Zahoor Khan (1/32) and Aayan Afzal Khan (1/36) took one wicket each for the UAE.

The UAE captain and opening batsman Muhammad Waseem, who was dismissed for a duck by Paul, hopes his men would put up a better fight against the Test-playing team in the next game on June 6.

"He (Paul) bowled well. Ali played well, but we were short by 50-60 runs," Waseem said.

"Aayan bowled well, but King played very well for West Indies. We will take some positives from this match and hopefully do well in other matches."