Black Caps v West Indies: New Zealand win series but fall in final match

The Black Caps came away from their Caribbean tour with an overall series win, but defeat in their final one-day match against the West Indies will leave them disappointed.

This isn’t to say New Zealand put in a poor performance: their score of 268 for nine was the highest first-innings total from all five matches and Will Young, Nick Kelly and Tom Latham all put up more than 50 runs each.

Central Districts spinner Jayden Lennox took three wickets in the final match, taking his tally for the series to 14, and forcing West Indies captain Shai Hope to play a risky shot and be caught by Kristian Clarke with more than 150 runs still needed.

However, impressive performances by Shimron Hetmyer and Sherfane Rutherford kept the home side in with a chance of victory, with Rutherford putting up a total of 61 before being stumped by Tom Latham and a fifth wicket partnership of 95 runs off 90 balls.

The West Indies started to make a charge toward the mammoth total after struggling against New Zealand’s spinners, but Jacob Duffy took plenty of momentum away from them with two wickets in two balls with five overs to go.

Duffy’s luck soon ran out as Hetmyer managed to hit him for six twice in the 47th over, leaving Nathan Smith to try to rein in the West Indies in the following over with just four runs required for victory.

It wasn’t Hetmyer, finishing on a score of 69 off 64 balls, who hit the winning runs, rather it was Seales who smashed the ball into a gap at long-on which reached the boundary and gave them a two-wicket victory.

New Zealand can take plenty of positives out of this series, especially bouncing back from an opening match defeat as they did against England in their recent test series.

The Black Caps will be back in action in October when they begin their Twenty20 series against India in Christchurch.