Roach stayed on 53 for 72 balls, deadbatting everything, while New Zealand fed Greaves the single early in overs, trying to isolate the tail-ender. But Roach wasn’t playing like a tail-ender. He was playing like an 85-Test veteran who understood what this meant. Greaves began cramping in the final ten overs as he neared that double hundred; all that effort, all that tension finally manifesting. With a West Indian win out of the question, New Zealand crowded the bat, attacked with close-in fielders and threw everything they had left. On another day, it would have worked. On this most spectacular day, the opposition refused to budge and a Test match in New Zealand ended in a draw for the first time since 2020.
