Analyzing the reasons behind the whitewash of West Indies vs New Zealand

Jason Holder
West Indies test team captain Jason Holder vs New Zealand (Source – ICC)

Yet another series, and it was the same story from the West Indies. After losing the T20l series West Indies have lost the Test Series by 2-0. From batting to bowling it was a complete disaster for the West Indies team on the tour.

Advertisement

It’s hard to believe that it is the same West Indies team where players like had Brian Lara and Shivnarine Chanderpaul came out and played with their top-notch batting skills, especially in test cricket.

In both the test matches for the West Indies, there was no one from the top order to middle-order who was there to provide resistance to the team.

While in the bowling it has absurd for West Indies. What’s time has come for the West Indies team who at once had the bowlers like Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall, and Michael Holding.

There was a time when teams were sacred to face the West Indies team with the most complete team they had. But in the current line-up, no one has the vision and the oppositions are humiliating them and defeating them easily to expose the reality of this line-up.

For New Zealand, they were missing the services of match-winner of last match Kane Williamson but still, they have proved it even without our vital cog we can defeat the opposition with an inning too. Having said, let us take a look at the three reasons why the West Indies lost the match.

1) Decision go bowl first

This was a completely shocking decision from the captain when the team was already trailing by 1-0 in the series. West Indies after winning the toss invited the hosts (New Zealand) to bat first at Wellington. It looked New Zealand team was waiting for this as they have scored 460 runs in their first innings.

In reply, West Indies was unable to cross that big total in both of their innings and lost the match by 12 runs and an inning. Tim Southee and Kyle Jamieson shared 5-5 wickets in the first innings of the West Indies. While in the second innings Trent Boult and Neil Wagner shared 3-3 wickets along with Tim Southee and Kyle Jamieson shared 2-2 wickets.

Advertisement

2) Poor bowling from West Indies

There is no brainer that the team is going to win the game in a format of red-ball cricket without the genuine fast bowlers to the quality spinner in the team in the overseas conditions. T20l and Test Cricket are different formats and West Indies have to figure out how to save their test status in the coming years of cricket. A team can’t be going to win the test matches with the limited-overs cricket bowlers. In the current West Indies team hard to say there is no one as a bowler who can single handily dominate the opposition.

Another scary part of the match was that West Indies didn’t play with the regular frontline spinners in a format like a Test match where the role of a spinner is most important to provide depth in the bowling division.

Advertisement