Former captain of the Indian team Rahul Dravid’s prediction finally came true. After India, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand became the fourth team to register a place in the World Cup semi-finals after blanking the West Indies by 143 runs in Wellington on Saturday. It was New Zealand all the way from the time they won the all-important toss.
Opener Martin Guptill’s 237 helped his team to make a mammoth 393 for 6. In reply, the West Indies were bundled out for 250 in 30.3 overs. This was sixth highest innings total in the history of ODI cricket. With the ball, Trent Boult grabbed four important wickets for his team. New Zealand will now play South Africa in Auckland.
Earlier in the last quarterfinal match of the competition, New kept a decent run-rate from the very beginning and kept wickets in hand. It was only in the last ten overs that saw some lusty shots from Guptill and Ross Taylor that took the match completely out of West Indies’ control. New Zealand scored 153 runs in last 10 overs of their innings. Guptill scored 117 runs off 120 balls. He then scored 120 runs off 43 deliveries at an unbelievable strike-rate of 279. This was also the highest individual score in a World Cup match. In total, he scored more than 60 per cent of his team’s run. He also struck 35 boundaries, the second most in ODI history after India’s Rohit Sharma.
Initially, the West Indies lost two quick wickets while chasing and it was Chris Gayle, who was again in his elements for a while. But the asking rate was huge and with the West Indies losing wickets at regular intervals, Gayle was throwing his bat at every ball. He had previously scored the highest individual score in a World Cup match against Zimbabwe last month in Canberra.
Towards the end of the West Indies chase captain Jason Holder showed that the Westpac stadium pitch was still good enough to play strokes at will. By this time, the West Indies had lost too many wickets. If New Zealand had scored 7.89 runs per over in their innings, the West Indies had 8.19 runs per over. But they ran out steam as the Kiwi bowlers kept taking regular wickets.
