New Zealand's tour seemed to have hit rock-bot­tom mid­way through the third ODI against West In­dies when their on­ly con­sis­tent bats­man of the se­ries, BJ Watling, joined their lengthy list of in­jured play­ers. This was af­ter their strug­gling and in­ex­pe­ri­enced bat­ting line-up got the gift of a pan­cake-flat track, a tiny ground where the straight bound­aries are on­ly 60m long, and the chance to bat first, but could on­ly reach 249. It was, the pun­dits agreed, a to­tal that wouldn't chal­lenge Chris Gayle & Co, and West In­dies seemed set to con­tin­ue their dom­i­nance in this se­ries. In­stead, they had their best ses­sion of the se­ries, and picked up their first win of the tour. The first sign that New Zealand weren't com­plete­ly de­mor­alised by their woe­ful per­for­mances so far came in the sec­ond over. Trent Boult fired in a york­er in his first ball in ODI crick­et, which Gayle man­aged to squeeze out. The ba­by-faced Boult walked back to his mark with a smile, un­fazed by the pres­sure of bowl­ing to the most de­struc­tive bats­man in the world.

All the talk in the lead-up to the match had been about how to stop the ma­raud­ing Gayle, who has four fifty-plus scores in four games this tour. So far, Gayle had com­bined ca­su­al bru­tal­i­ty with con­sis­ten­cy to put West in­dies in charge of every match.

This time he was out ear­ly, as he edged an away-go­ing de­liv­ery from Tim Southee to slip, ex­pos­ing West In­dies' ex­plo­sive-but-brit­tle bat­ting line-up. The one de­part­ment in which New Zealand have been as good, if not bet­ter, than West In­dies is the field­ing.

To­day was no dif­fer­ent, as they pulled off three run-outs and a sharp catch. That catch by Nathan Mc­Cul­lum sent back Dwayne Smith, who con­tin­ues to in­fu­ri­ate and en­thrall by turns, for 11. Dwayne Bra­vo was run out soon af­ter, as he at­tempt­ed a third af­ter Southee had fired a laser-guid­ed throw from deep mid­wick­et which reached the bowler inch­es from the top of the stumps. Mar­tin Gup­till, made up for his bat­ting fail­ures, with a sen­sa­tion­al stop at cov­er, and in­stant­ly fling­ing the ball to­wards mid­dle stump, catch­ing Mar­lon Samuels short. Kieron Pol­lard a full ball to­wards deep square leg, and Dar­ren Sam­my played one from Mc­Cul­lum too ear­ly, lob­bing back a catch to the bowler.

West In­dies had stut­tered to 95 for 7 and the game was up, de­spite An­dre Rus­sell show­ing off some clean hit­ting and high­light­ing the lack of grem­lins in the track. At the start of the match, far high­er scores were pre­dict­ed. For­mer fast bowler Ian Bish­op was talk­ing about how glad he is that he wouldn't have to bowl on this pitch, and for­mer wick­et­keep­er Jeff Du­jon was hop­ing there was a suf­fi­cient stock of balls as he ex­pect­ed plen­ty to be hit out of the park. That sort of talk ceased mid­way through New Zealand's in­nings, as they had lost half their side and were in the mid­dle of a 12-over bound­ary-less spell. An al­ready flatlin­ing in­nings shift­ed to an even low­er gear as Rob Nicol, the on­ly top-or­der bats­man to cap­i­talise on the per­fect bat­ting con­di­tions, mis­cued a catch back to the bowler Samuels. New Zealand were 125 for 5 and the pri­or­i­ty switched from look­ing to belt the bowl­ing around, to try­ing to play out the en­tire quo­ta of overs. Once again the young top or­der failed: Gup­till added to his run of low scores, Daniel Fly­nn didn't im­prove his pedes­tri­an ODI record, Tom Lath­am made 12 and Kane Williamson played-on for nine. One man who would have thrived in these con­di­tions, Bren­don Mc­Cul­lum, wasn't picked as New Zealand de­cid­ed to give him time to ac­cli­ma­tise-he on­ly flew in from New Zealand a day ago.

Score­board

West In­dies vs New Zealand

New Zealand Inns

Rob Nicol c & b Samuels 59

Mar­tin Gup­till lbw b Rus­sell 11

Daniel Fly­nn c Ramdin b Bra­vo 28

Kane Williamson b Nar­ine 9

Tom Lath­am c Gayle b Sam­my 12

BJ Watling c Nar­ine b Rus­sell 40

Nathan Mc­Cul­lum c Bra­vo b Rus­sell 50

Ja­cob Oram st Ramdin b Nar­ine 7

Kyle Mills c Gayle b Rus­sell 2

Tim Southee not out 17

Trent Boult not out 1

Ex­tras: (6lb, 5w, 2nb) 13

TO­TAL: (for nine wick­ets) 249

Overs: 50.

Fall of wick­ets: 1-24, 2-71, 3-97, 4-124, 5-125, 6-191, 7-216, 8-219, 9-239.

Bowl­ing: Ravi Ram­paul 10-0-61-0 (1w), An­dre Rus­sell 9-0-57-4 (1w), Dwayne Bra­vo 7-0-47-1 (2w, 2nb), Sunil Nar­ine 10-0-28-2 (1w), Dar­ren Sam­my 8-1-22-1, Mar­lon Samuels 6-0-28-1.

West In­dies Inns

John­son Charles lbw b Boult 15

Chris Gayle c Nicol b Southee 11

Dwayne Smith c Mc­Cul­lum b Oram 19

Mar­lon Samuels run out (Gup­till) 11

Dwayne Bra­vo run out (Southee/Mills) 2

Kieron Pol­lard c sub (Brown­lie) b Mc­Cul­lum 16

De­nesh Ramdin lbw b Oram 14

Dar­ren Sam­my lbw b Oram 7

An­dre Rus­sell not out 42

Sunil Nar­ine run out (Williamson/Mc­Cul­lum) 10

Ravi Ram­paul c Southee b Boult 9

Ex­tras: (3lb, 1w, 1nb) 5

TO­TAL: (all out) 161

Overs: 34.3.

Fall of wick­ets: 1-19, 2-33, 3-50, 4-52, 5-62, 6-85, 7-95, 8-103, 9-133.

Bowl­ing: Kyle Mills 7-2-37-0, Trent Boult 8.3-0-45-2 (1nb), Tim Southee 6-1-14-1 (1w), Ja­cob Oram 7-1-22-2, Nathan Mc­Cul­lum 6-0-40-2.

Re­sult: New Zealand won by 88 runs.

Se­ries: West In­dies leads 2-1 with 2 match­es left.

Toss: West In­dies.

Um­pires: Richard Ket­tle­bor­ough and Joel Wil­son, Eng­land.

TV um­pire: Richard Illing­worth, Eng­land.

Match ref­er­ee: Andy Py­croft, Zim­bab­we.