Jayden Lennox has produced the innings of his short international career, taking five wickets for 19 runs to bowl the Black Caps to a five-wicket win over the West Indies in the second one-day international in Guyana and level the five-match series at one apiece.
The 22-year-old spinner turned a tight, low-scoring contest into a rout at Providence Stadium, ripping the heart out of a West Indies batting order that had looked comfortable at 63 without loss. From there the hosts lost all ten wickets for just 75 runs and were bowled out for 138 in 36 overs, a collapse that told the story of a pitch made for slow bowling and a New Zealand side that read the conditions far better than its opponent.
The Black Caps knocked off the runs at a canter, reaching 141 for 5 in 33 overs to win with 104 balls to spare. Tom Latham anchored the reply with an unbeaten 37, while Daryl Mitchell and Will Young chipped in with 28 each and Michael Bracewell made a brisk 24 from 26 balls. It was never a stiff chase once the spinners had done their work, and the tourists rarely looked troubled.
Lennox’s figures of 5 for 19 are the third best returned by a New Zealand spinner in men’s one-day internationals, sitting behind only Ish Sodhi’s 6 for 39 and Daniel Vettori’s 5 for 7. In just his seventh ODI, the young tweaker beat the bat repeatedly, drew edges and trapped batters in front, and was named player of the match for a spell that shifted the entire series.
“The role of a spinner in New Zealand is a little different from one elsewhere, so to be able to contribute the way I’ve been able to is pretty great,” Lennox told RNZ after the match.
What made the win so emphatic was the decision to load the side with slow bowlers. New Zealand played four spinners on a surface that offered turn and slow bounce, and the gamble paid off completely. Nine of the ten West Indies wickets fell to spin, the most the Black Caps have ever taken with slow bowling in a single ODI innings. Mitchell Santner backed up Lennox with 2 for 21 and Bracewell added 2 for 51, the pair sharing the openers early before Lennox took over the middle order.
It was a full reversal of the opening match of the series, when the West Indies chased down a modest target to win by seven wickets and hand New Zealand a reminder that touring the Caribbean is rarely straightforward. That first game, in which teenage debutant Vitel Lawes shone for the hosts, had put the Black Caps on the back foot. The response in the second match could hardly have been more complete.
The tour has not been kind on the injury front. New Zealand have carried a depleted squad through the Caribbean and have leaned heavily on their younger players and their spin depth to stay competitive. That the side could absorb those setbacks and still dismantle the West Indies for 138 speaks to the strength of the slow-bowling options coach Rob Walter has at his disposal, and to the composure of a batting line-up that did not panic when the game was there to be won.
For the West Indies, the collapse will sting. Cruising at 63 without loss on their own patch, the hosts had every chance to post a total that would have tested the tourists. Instead they surrendered the initiative in a heap of soft dismissals, unable to counter bowling that gave them nothing to hit and plenty to think about. Their inability to rotate the strike or find boundaries against the spinners left them well short of a defendable score.
Lennox’s rise is one of the quieter good-news stories of the New Zealand summer game. Spin has never been the country’s calling card, with fast, seaming pitches at home shaping generations of quick bowlers rather than tweakers. For a young spinner to force his way into the side and then deliver a match-winning spell in conditions far removed from anything he grew up on suggests the Black Caps have unearthed a genuine option for the sub-continent and the Caribbean, where slow bowling so often decides matches.
The series now moves on with everything to play for. The third ODI is scheduled for Guyana before the sides shift to Barbados for the final two matches, giving New Zealand the chance to build on their momentum and the West Indies the task of steadying a batting order that has now been undone once by pace and once, far more painfully, by spin. You can follow the series scorecards and reports through ESPNcricinfo and the NZ Herald.
On the evidence of Guyana, the tourists have found both the surface and the bowler to exploit it. If the pitches for the remaining matches offer anything like the same assistance, Lennox and the rest of the New Zealand spin attack will fancy their chances of turning a levelled series into a winning one.
What do you make of the Black Caps’ spin-heavy plan in the Caribbean, and is Jayden Lennox one for the future? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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