New Zealand v West Indies - Series Summary
WEST INDIES WON THE SERIES 2-0
West Indies made it a magnificent seven consecutive series wins with their expected victory over New Zealand, but had Garry Sobers' team been up against stronger opponents then it could well have been a different story. Time and again the West Indian top order failed - Fredericks, Haynes and Kanhai recorded just one fifty between them and averaged less than fifteen as a unit - and only the form of Sobers and Worrell coupled with a tail that defied expectations with the bat kept the tourists afloat. Worrell was truly magnificent on his recall to the side, and his partnerships with Sobers, which were worth an average of 97.67, really proved to be a major difference between the teams.
A depleted West Indian attack supported each other well as a unit - Walsh, Garner, Griffith and Sobers shared 46 wickets evenly between them - with Hall proving the only real disappointment, but the same cannot be said of New Zealand, for whom Richard Hadlee ploughed an increasingly lone furrow as the series went on. Cowie bowled well in Wellington but faded thereafter, and by the end of the series Hadlee had captured 25 wickets compared to a combined haul of 28 for the remainder of New Zealand's attack. John Reid endured an anonymous series with the ball, but with Chris Cairns making little impact on debut, Reid is expected to retain his place in the side for the Sri Lanka Tests.
Despite its failings in the final innings in both Wellington and Auckland, New Zealand's batting looks in reasonable shape ahead of those matches, with Turner, Donnelly and Dempster all putting in good performances over the course of this series. There remains a vacancy at number three though, and Bevan Congdon is expected to be recalled to fill the berth against Sri Lanka. West Indies now head home to prepare for the visit of India, and all things point to them retaining their number one ranking come the end of that series.
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