Chase ‘concerned’ by Windies batting following crushing 9-wicket defeat to New Zealand

New Zealand 278 & 57-1 (Conway 28*, Williamson 16*, Phillip 1-17) beat West Indies 205 & 128 (Hodge 35, Greaves 25, Duffy 5-38) by nine wickets 

In the wake of batting 163.3 second-innings overs in the Christchurch Test six days ago, the West Indies faced a combined 121.2 overs across both their innings in Wellington as their helpless display was rewarded with a humiliating defeat before Tea on Day 3 of the second Test. 

Windies captain Roston Chase said, “The batting is a bit of a concern. We came here [after the first Test] and our batters never really capitalized.”

The Caribbean side began the day trailing New Zealand by 41 runs with eight wickets in hand. Kavem Hodge and Brandon King returned to see off an incident-free first half hour, adding 18 runs to West Indies’ overnight score of 32 for 2, before the latter was run-out for 22.

 A first-ball boundary and a few strikerotations later, Shai Hope (5) had presented a gift of a return-catch to Michael Rae in the same over. The West Indies found themselves with four wickets down while still 15 runs in the red. 

Chase (2) couldn’t stick around to see his side tick over into the lead. His wicket was the beginning of the Jacob Duffy show. Duffy’s 5 for 38 was a main-act worthy of the Player of the Match award. 

Prior to Duffy taking centre stage, substitute fielder Will Young had taken a brilliant catch on the second attempt at short midwicket to get rid of Windies’ top scorer, Kavem Hodge for 35. The visitors were 98 for 6 at Lunch.

There was no resistance from the Caribbean lower-order this time around. They lost 8 wickets for 98 runs on the day to be bundled out for 128, leaving New Zealand needing just 56 runs for victory. 

Chase insists the West Indies’ performance with the bat did not reflect the nature of the wicket. “Initially, we thought the pitch would be similar to Christchurch,” he said. “But this pitch was a lot easier for batting. The scores didn't reflect that.”

The Kiwis needed just 60 balls to overhaul the target and take a 1-0 series lead, securing victory at 57 for the loss of Tom Latham (9).