Black Caps vs. West Indies

The West Indies cricket team are touring New Zealand at the moment. They’ve played three T20 matches in Auckland and Mount Maunganui; New Zealand won 2 of these and the third was abandoned after 2.2 overs. The format then switched to test matches, with one played in Hamilton at the beginning of December, where New Zealand won by an innings and 134 runs. The action moved to Wellington last Friday, and we headed down to the Basin Reserve for day one of the match.

The weather was sunny at first, but with a typical cool Wellington breeze blowing through the ground. We were relatively well sheltered in our seats, and out of the sun, unlike the folk on the grassy bank. West Indies won and elected to put New Zealand in to bat on a pitch and outfield that were still very green and wet from some serious rain the previous day. For a while around lunchtime the rain threatened to return, with some light drizzle, but the afternoon cleared up and became warm and sunny.

Batting was predictably tricky in the opening session, and there were some threes run which showed how slow the outfield was – balls that would normally carry for four being slowed down in the damp grass. By lunch they were at 82/3. The Windies were bowling noticeably slowly and only completed 23 overs in the first session. It looked like they had New Zealand on the ropes, but Henry Nicholls, who’d reached 2 before lunch, pushed on past 50 by teatime. The loss of only one further wicket, Nicholls’ 50, and the ground drying out meant the pendulum was swing back towards the Black Caps. In the final session they added 124 runs and Nicholls completed his century. They finished on 294/6, with Nicholls on 117. A good day’s batting for New Zealand, setting up the match.

The following day I was on duty at Zealandia, so I dropped Nicola off on the way, and she watched as New Zealand wrapped up their innings for a total of 460, and Nicholls reaching his highest ever score of 174. They then bowled the West Indies to 124/8 by the end of the day. It was pretty much a repeat of the first test, and on day three they cleaned up the remaining wickets, put the Windies back into bat, and had another crack at them. Again, as in the first test, they made a better showing in their second innings and were trailing by 85 at close, on 244/6. It didn’t take long for the Black Caps to polish the remaining wickets off on day four, and they won before lunch by an innings and12 runs.

The Black Caps win the series 2-0, ready to take on Pakistan next week. In the new ICC World Test Championship, New Zealand are now the No.1 test cricket side.