BASSETERRE, St Kitts (CMC) — West Indies Under-19 coach Andre Coley has described as “satisfying”, Monday’s warm-up victory over Canada for next month’s Youth World Cup in New Zealand.

Led by a well measured unbeaten century from Kraigg Brathwaite and captain Andre Creary’s half-century, the West Indies U19s whipped Canada by 71 runs on the Duckworth/Lewis method in the rain-hit fixture at Warner Park.

“It was good that we had an opportunity to go in the middle and get some vital match practice,” Coley told CMC Sport yesterday.

The squad’s preparation for the 2010 ICC Under-19 Cricket World Cup set for January 15-30, has been bothered by bad weather at this week’s camp here and even at the WICB President’s Cup that was badly interrupted in Guyana in October.

The Windies U19s, led by Brathwaite (108 not out) and Creary (50), compiled a decent score of 231 for four off 44 overs and limited the Canadians to 74 for four off 24.4 overs when rain aborted the match on Monday.

“We have had some rain here affecting us and the boys had the opportunity in the match to do some of things we wanted to get done,” Coley said.

“The pitch conditions called for some amount of application and we did well, even though we played against (little-rated) Canada, not downplaying the Canadians though because they are in the ICC Youth World Cup as well,” added Coley, who guided Jamaica to a West Indies TCL Group U19 double triumph this past summer.

Coley praised Brathwaite for his calculated knock, the 17-year-old now with an amazing 41 centuries at varying levels of domestic and regional cricket – from primary schools competition, Under-13, U15, U19, trial matches, and Barbados Division One seniors.

“From the Under-13 level, Brathwaite has proven that his powers of concentration are very strong,” Coley said.

Brathwaite, who only turned 17 years old two weeks ago, was patient initially, pacing himself to his 50 off 80 balls in 103 minutes with three boundaries before unleashing a flurry of shots to compile his hundred.

The young Barbadian reached his hundred in 175 minutes off 127 balls and his undefeated innings, included seven fours and two sixes.

“He planned his innings very well. It took him 80 or 82 balls to get to fifty then as the innings went on, he picked up his pace, so it was good to see him timing the innings very well,” Coley said.

Creary lashed 50 off 58 balls in 56 minutes with five fours and two sixes and added 83 for the third wicket with Brathwaite.

The other wickets to fall were that of John Campbell (26), Kejel Tyson (13) and Trevon Griffin (16).

Brathwaite and Evin Lewis (1) were the not out batsmen at the end of the innings.

When the Canadians batted, they struggled against spin bowlers Jomel Warrican and Patrick Harty.

Left-arm spinner Warrican produced stifling figures of one for 11 off nine overs while leg-spinner Harty claimed one for 21 off nine overs and the Windies U19s effected two run-outs.

West Indies and Canada are slated to face each other again on Wednesday.

An 18-man Windies U19 squad has been assembled in St Kitts for a camp a month ahead of their opening ICC Youth World Cup match against Pakistan on January 15 in Group D in New Zealand.

West Indies tackle Bangladesh on January 17 and Papua New Guinea two days later in their remaining Group D matches in Napier.

The 15-man squad to New Zealand is expected to be named later this week.