Windies pay price as batsmen lose the plot
IAN ANDERSON
Who’d be a coach?
On Monday evening, West Indies batting coach Toby Radford laid out his masterplan to the media on how his troops could somehow bat their way to victory in Hamilton.
We listened intently - but his best batsmen appeared to have turned a deaf ear.
"This is going to be a stiff ask, but I think we’ll want to see lots of things," the affable Radford said.
"It’s about individual performances for us it’s the last test match of the year, it’s been a long busy year, some of these players have been on the road for a long period of time, and it’s their last opportunity in test match cricket for a good number of months now - we don’t play until four or five months into next year.
"So I’m sure they’ll really want to finish the year with a personal milestone or go out on a bang, as well as a team effort."
"I think what we are wanting is a lot of fight and to really show what we can do," Radford said.
Instead, they could only bat 63.5 overs as they were dismissed before tea on day four.
"I’d love to see Kraigg [Brathwaite] and Shai [Hope] do something similar to what they achieved at Headingley Has anyone had a worse cricket tour of New Zealand than West Indian batsman Sunil Ambris?
Ambris, in only his second test, retired hurt in the West Indies’ second innings in Hamilton against the Black Caps yesterday, after a nasty knock to his left forearm while batting.
It was later revealed he had fractured his left arm and would return home, missing the one-day international series against the Black Caps.
It was a painful end to what has been an unfortunate and embarrassing tour for the 24-year-old.
In the first test of the series in Wellington, Ambris was out to the first ball he faced in test cricket, from Black Caps paceman Neil Wagner. That created test history as no one else had been out for a hit-wicket golden duck on debut.
Remarkably he was out the same way in the first innings in the second innings at Seddon Park. He at least got off the mark and was on two, when he stood on his stumps as he fended away a short ball from Trent Boult.
It was Wagner who hit him on the forearm in the second innings yesterday. Ambris, who scored 5 this time, turned his back on a short delivery and got hit on the forearm. He wasn’t wearing an armguard.
He got treatment but a few minutes later he left the field to go for an X-ray.
The Black Caps confirmed later that Ambris had a fracture to his left arm.
Ambris had come to the wicket after Shai Hope was out, only a few balls after also copping a nasty blow to the forearm from a short-pitched delivery from Wagner. With Ambris unable to bat, the Black Caps dismissed the West Indies for 203, giving them a win by 240 runs.