Having clean-swept Ireland in ODIs and T20Is, followed by Scotland and Netherlands too, recently, the Black Caps made a winning start to their white-ball tour of the Caribbean, defeating West Indies by 13 runs in the first of three T20Is at the Sabina Park, Kingston, Jamaica on Wednesday.
The chief contributor with the bat was skipper Kane Williamson, who struck four fours and two sixes in a 33-ball 47 on return – his first outing in the format since his 48-ball 85 in the T20 World Cup 2021 final against Australia in Dubai in November last year. Devon Conway, too, played his part, with a brisk 43 off 29 in a 62-run opening stand with Martin Guptill before both fell off successive balls to Odean Smith in the eighth over.
A major highlight of the innings, perhaps the whole game, was Shimron Hetmyer’s breathtaking catch to dismiss Guptill, with the fielder sprinting across to his left from the sweeper cover region to leap and pull off a stunning one-handed take, while maintaining his balance inches inside the boundary ropes.
Smith would dismiss Williamson in the 18th over to cap off an impressive spell, before Jimmy Neesham’s brisk unbeaten 33 off 15 powered New Zealand’s strong finish to 185/5. He struck three hits to the fence and a couple over it, four of those hits coming in the final over of the innings off Jason Holder, which yielded 23.
Tim Southee trapped Kyle Mayers leg-before in the second over of the chase, and Mitchell Santner and Lockie Ferguson collectively reduced West Indies to 49/4 by the seventh over, with skipper Nicholas Pooran, Shimron Hetmyer, and wicketkeeper Devon Thomas dismissed.
Shamarh Brooks tried to hold his end up, and struggled for a 43-ball 42, before becoming Santner’s third victim. West Indies looked completely out at 114/7 in the 16th over, with Jason Holder dismissed for 25, before a stroke-filled 58-run stand between Romario Shepherd (31* off 16) and Odean Smith (27* off 12) revived hopes. However, it came too late to avoid a 13-run defeat.
Williamson was satisfied with the overall result, but hoped for improvement on a few aspects:
“The performance and what went into it was more pleasing. We know how dynamic and gifted West Indies players are. We know that’s what they are going to bring and for us it was nice to stick to our plan. Having said that, there are some things to improve.”
This was West Indies’ fourth straight defeat, after having gone down in each of the last three T20Is against India recently.
“We want to get better as a group but in saying that I was happy with the performances. Santner bowled very well and Ish [Sodhi] got away with a few. Scores above 175-180 are tricky for us. Unfortunately losing is contagious and we’re on the losing side at the moment.”
Pooran said.
The second and third T20I will be played at the same venue on August 13 and August 15, respectively.
Brief scores
New Zealand 185/5 in 20 overs (Williamson 47, Conway 43; Smith 3-32) beat West Indies 172/7 in 20 overs (Brooks 42; Santner 3-19) by 13 runs.
