West Indies v New Zealand, 2012

Test matches (2): West Indies 2, New Zealand 0
One-day internationals (5): West Indies 4, New Zealand 1
Twenty20 internationals (2): West Indies 2, New Zealand 0

	Kemar Roach: consistently fast and capable of a destructive spell © DigicelCricket.com/Brooks LaTouche Photography Enlarge
Related Links Series/Tournaments: New Zealand tour of United States of America and West Indies Teams: New Zealand | West Indies

Even at the peak of their powers in the 1980s, West Indies rarely dominated a team as categorically as this. Hosting New Zealand for the first time in ten years, they won both Tests, four of the five one-day internationals and both Twenty20 internationals (staged on neutral ground in Florida). West Indies had not won a Test series by two clear matches - other than against Zimbabwe or Bangladesh - since 1997-98, when they beat England 3-1 at home. This, then, was heady stuff. But for New Zealand it was nothing short of a disaster: they began the Test and one-day series ahead of West Indies in the respective rankings, and slipped behind them in both.

New Zealand accumulated as many problems off the field as on it, a situation with which West Indies could identify. Before departing for the Caribbean, their former opening batsman John Wright announced it was to be his last tour as coach, following the appointment of John Buchanan as director of cricket and Kim Littlejohn, another Australian, as national selection manager. A personality clash was at the root of the problem; neither did it help when Wright proposed a pre-tour camp for the team, only for Buchanan to knock it back as too costly.

There were signs of rustiness as New Zealand began their first series in three months without playing a warm-up match. As Wright handed over to his successor, Mike Hesson, he attacked an individual lack of responsibility. "You just can't come off and wave a dismissal away with phrases like 'it's the way I play' and 'I didn't quite execute'," he said. "It's a brutal game at international level and you have to be very brutal in your self-analysis."

New Zealand were so badly let down by their batting that their only hundred was captain Ross Taylor's 110 in the fourth one-day game - and they lost even that. And when all they needed in Kingston was a reasonable second-innings effort, to convert a lead of 51 into a series-saving victory, they folded for 154 - the sort of performance usually turned in at that stage of a match by West Indies. Only Martin Guptill, the tall opener, emerged with reputation intact after Test scores of 97, 67, 71 and 42. Their two most experienced bowlers, Daniel Vettori and Chris Martin, made little impression in the first Test; Vettori was eliminated from the second by a groin injury, while Martin was dropped. Their fielding, historically a strength, let them down.

The one plus was their young pace attack, but they never had enough runs to play with. West Indies were strengthened by Chris Gayle's return at the top of the order, not to mention the peaceful conclusion of his 15-month stand-off with the board. Back after his globetrotting exploits in the IPL and other lucrative franchise tournaments, Gayle smashed 85 not out and 53 in the Twenty20 matches, marked his first international appearance in his native Kingston for three years with 63 not out and 125 in the two 50-over matches there, then compiled 150 and an unbeaten 64 to seal victory in the Antigua Test, his first since December 2010.

The availability of offspinner Sunil Narine for an entire tour for the first time was also crucial. After a disappointing trip to England, he was as mesmerising in the shorter formats as he had been in the IPL, with seven wickets for 46 in his eight Twenty20 overs, and 13 wickets at 11 and an economy rate of 2.92 in the one-day internationals. He had to work harder in the Tests, but was always a threat.

West Indies' success did not revolve entirely around the IPL superstars. Darren Sammy, the captain, described it as a "one-for-all, all-for-one mission". Marlon Samuels, continuing his sublime form from the Tests in England, stroked two hundreds in front of his fellow Jamaicans at Sabina Park. His 123 out of 209 in the second Test was especially memorable, and was followed by a nerve-steadying 52 when West Indies were stuttering in their quest for 206. Kemar Roach, consistently fast and capable of a destructive spell, was Man of the Series for his 12 Test wickets, and would have had a couple more but for recurrent overstepping. When Narine was below-par in Jamaica, Narsingh Deonarine, an underrated off-spinner, took up the slack; with the bat, both he and his fellow Guyanese left-hander Assad Fudadin filled the breach left by Darren Bravo's absence through injury and Shivnarine Chanderpaul's loss of form. Kieran Powell, the 22-year-old opener, followed in Gayle's wake to his first Test hundred, in an opening partnership of 254 in Antigua.

The two Twenty20 internationals at the compact Central Broward Regional Park in Lauderhill were West Indies' first venture into the United States - and, many thought, an overdue one. The 8,000 or so who turned out for each match in sweltering heat were almost exclusively relocated West Indians, sporting more of their team's replica shirts than are usually seen at any home venue. The few conspicuous Americans wore flak jackets marked "sheriff" and kept menacing, if redundant, guns in their holsters. Two comfortable West Indies victories and the 25 sixes they clubbed along the way enhanced the festive mood. Unlike the awkward pitch that had accounted for low-scoring matches between New Zealand and Sri Lanka at Lauderhill in 2010, this surface was hard, true and ideal for the game's shortest format.

Yet not everyone was happy. Donald Ramotar, the president of Guyana, criticised the West Indies Cricket Board for the "abomination" of staging matches in Florida. He complained that "key matches are now being taken out of the region while some of our territories are deliberately deprived" - a reference to the WICB's moving of all international and regional matches out of Guyana following their government's replacement of the Guyana Cricket Board with an interim management committee.

The overall standard of the cricket did little to dispel the media's description of the tour as a bottom-of-the-table clash. But neither that, nor the distraction of the public's gaze by the brilliant Caribbean athletes at the London Olympics, mattered a jot to West Indies. Recent victories had been few and far between, and none as emphatic as this.

Match reports for

1st T20I: New Zealand v West Indies at Lauderhill, Jun 30, 2012
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2nd T20I: New Zealand v West Indies at Lauderhill, Jul 1, 2012
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1st ODI: West Indies v New Zealand at Kingston, Jul 5, 2012
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2nd ODI: West Indies v New Zealand at Kingston, Jul 7, 2012
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3rd ODI: West Indies v New Zealand at Basseterre, Jul 11, 2012
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4th ODI: West Indies v New Zealand at Basseterre, Jul 14, 2012
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5th ODI: West Indies v New Zealand at Basseterre, Jul 16, 2012
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Tour Match: West Indies Cricket Board President's XI v New Zealanders at North Sound, Jul 20-22, 2012
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1st Test: West Indies v New Zealand at North Sound, Jul 25-29, 2012
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2nd Test: West Indies v New Zealand at Kingston, Aug 2-5, 2012
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