{"id":10701,"date":"2025-11-05T19:31:03","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T14:31:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=10701"},"modified":"2025-11-05T19:40:45","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T14:40:45","slug":"west-indies-edge-new-zealand-despite-santner-brilliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/sports\/west-indies-edge-new-zealand-despite-santner-brilliance\/","title":{"rendered":"West Indies edge New Zealand despite Santner brilliance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Auckland (AFP) \u2013 <\/em>A brilliant bowling performance secured the West Indies an unlikely seven-run victory in the first T20 against New Zealand on Wednesday, despite a stunning solo effort from Mitchell Santner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The West Indies, who landed in New Zealand only two days ago, struggled on the Eden Park drop-in wicket that offered some seam and turn to the home bowlers, making 164-6 from their 20 overs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The visitors then delivered a precise bowling performance to restrict the Black Caps, who needed a brilliant 28-ball 55 from captain Santner to keep the game interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Santner won the toss and elected to field at an initially sun-filled Eden Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Black Caps struck twice in the powerplay, Brandon King and Alick Athanaze falling to Jacob Duffy and Kyle Jamieson respectively to leave West Indies 32-2 after six overs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Captain Shai Hope looked to anchor the innings for the visitors, cautiously approaching his opening overs before ramping up the risk as he attacked the straight boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The West Indies were 66-3 halfway through their innings, but then plundered 34 runs in the next three overs as Hope brought up a 38-ball 50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He fell from the very next ball, a Zak Foulkes delivery staying low and wiping out the leg stump as Hope tried to hoist it over the leg side.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rovman Powell provided much-needed power for the West Indies, clubbing two sixes as he brought up a 23-ball 33, but his side meandered towards what appeared an under-par score.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But then it was all West Indies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Robinson opened the batting for New Zealand alongside Devon Conway, who returned to the XI after Tim Seifert broke a finger while batting in domestic cricket on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seamer Matthew Forde was superb for West Indies, taking 1-9 from three powerplay overs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

New Zealand struggled to find the boundary and a double strike by Jayden Seales in the 13th over flipped the game in the visitors’ favour, removing Daryl Mitchell and Michael Bracewell in the space of three balls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Seales finished with 3-32 from his four overs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A late flurry from Santner gave New Zealand faint hope but, needing 20 from the final over, he fell just short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two sides play again at Eden Park on Thursday in the second game of the five-match series.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Auckland (AFP) \u2013 A brilliant bowling performance secured the West Indies an unlikely seven-run victory in the first T20 against New Zealand on Wednesday, despite a stunning solo effort from Mitchell Santner. The West Indies, who landed in New Zealand only two days ago, struggled on the Eden Park drop-in wicket that offered some seam and […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":10702,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10701"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}