Black Caps seek series clinching win

Following a crushing 81-run win in the opening match in Wellington, the home team rallied from 13 for four to reach a victory target of 201 with three wickets and eight overs in hand on Wednesday at the Queenstown Events Centre to take a 2-0 lead in the series.

The third match was a day/night encounter at Jade Stadium last night Caribbean time, and victory there will render the remaining matches in Napier and Auckland academic, although there is every indication from the Black Caps that they must keep their feet on the throats of the opposition to maintain dominance in the three-Test series that follows. "When they’re on top— and they were very much on top in Queenstown— they tend to fire," said "Man-of-the-Match" Daniel Vettori in the aftermath of his match-winning innings two days ago.

"But if you can keep them down, then they stay down. Hopefully we can manage to do that and continue it through the series." New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming, who admitted that his team should never have won after losing their first four wickets just four overs into their run-chase on Wednesday, concurred with Vettori’s opinion that the West Indies tend to ride an emotional wave.

"You just had that feeling that they were on a roll," the home skipper noted in reflecting on the early strikes by the opening bowling pair of Fidel Edwards and Ian Bradshaw. "They were loud and they were high-fiving. What we try to do is to keep them away from that." Fleming, who is generally acknowledged to be the best captain in international cricket, suggested that the West Indies’ recent run of losses played a part in allowing his team to escape from what seemed certain defeat.

"They’ve lost a lot of matches," he noted, a reference to the tourists’ abysmal record that now extends to just two wins from 20 ODIs going back to the VB Series in Australia in January, 2005.

"When you get in a situation like on Wednesday, you start to think you’re going to lose this one as well. We could just see that when we started to counter-attack.

They got hesitant and took on more pressure than they should have done. We were able to exploit that and did it very well." Having been substituted after bowling five expensive overs in the opening match at Westpac Stadium and then conceding 40 runs off just five overs in Queenstown, Taylor is in danger of losing his place in the final 11 for the must-win clash in Christchurch.

Rawl Lewis, the leg-spinning all-rounder who has been used as the "super-sub" for the first two matches, could be the full-time replacement for Taylor, unless the tour selectors believe Lewis’ Windward Islands team-mate Deighton Butler could be a better option as a support bowler. The tourists are significantly handicapped by the continuing absence of Dwayne Bravo.