{"id":246211,"date":"2025-11-05T23:32:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T23:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/246211\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T23:32:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T23:32:12","slug":"santners-brilliance-in-vain-as-west-indies-edge-new-zealand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/246211\/","title":{"rendered":"Santner&#8217;s brilliance in vain as West Indies edge New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AUCKLAND: A brilliant bowling performance secured the West Indies an unlikely seven-run victory in the first T20I against New Zealand on Wednesday, despite a stunning solo effort from Mitchell Santner.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>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<p>Santner won the toss and elected to field at an initially sun-filled Eden Park.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>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<p>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<p>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<p>Follow us on our Official\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.whatsapp.com\/channel\/0029Va9kjxo6mYPLvlX1UJ43\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">WhatsApp channel<\/a><\/p>\n<p>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<p>But then it was all West Indies. 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<p>Seamer Matthew Forde was superb for West Indies, taking 1-9 from three powerplay overs.<\/p>\n<p>New Zealand struggled to find the boundary, and a double strike by Jayden Seales in the 13th over flipped the game in the visitors\u2019 favour, removing Daryl Mitchell and Michael Bracewell in the space of three balls.<\/p>\n<p>A late flurry from Santner gave New Zealand some hope, but needing 20 runs from the final over, he fell just short.<\/p>\n<p>The skipper ended unbeaten on 55 off 28 balls, which included ten boundaries, with two of them being sixes.<\/p>\n<p>The two sides will play again at Eden Park on Thursday in the second game of the five-match series.<\/p>\n<p>READ: <a href=\"https:\/\/a-sports.tv\/mohammad-rizwan-rises-babar-azam-drops-in-icc-odi-rankings\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Mohammad Rizwan on the rise, Babar Azam drops in ICC ODI Rankings<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUCKLAND: A brilliant bowling performance secured the West Indies an unlikely seven-run victory in the first T20I against&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,103046,101,56,54,55,103045],"class_list":["post-246211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-mitchell-santner","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-west-indies-new-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}