Priest, bowlers brush aside West Indies
A grand show from bowlers Lea Tahuhu and Leigh Kasperek, followed by a blitz from Rachel Priest, saw New Zealand canter home against West Indies
A grand show from bowlers Lea Tahuhu and Leigh Kasperek, followed by a blitz from Rachel Priest, saw New Zealand canter home against West Indies
Commentator: Sreshth Shah
3.21 pm New Zealand dominated proceedings at Taunton today to move to fourth place. Their bowlers set up the match by bowling the opposition out for 150. If you thought the bowlers would steal the game's thunder, opener Rachel Priest put that thought to rest. She smacked 90 off 55 balls to set up the chase. They razed the target down in 18.2 overs and won with over 190 balls to spare. West Indies are all but out and they're now mostly playing for pride. Here's how the points table looks after 16 games. Hope you enjoyed our coverage of the match. From Sreshth and Deiva, it's goodbye.
3.17 pm West Indies captain Stafanie Taylor: "I guess when we play at home, we have that advantage (about their positive record against New Zealand in the past). They have more things going their way at the moment. We haven't really been playing much 50-over cricket. Couple of New Zealand girls managed to get acclimatised. If you look at 50-over games, it's been a while since we last played. In the past few games, the openers set up a platform but the middle-order could not capitalize. It's all about mindset (about the next game against Sri Lanka). We just have to look to play some positive cricket. We just have to play for some pride.
3.14 pm Winning captain Suzie Bates says: "We didn't plan the fast-paced chase. Priest was hitting it out of the park and that's how she plays so we let her do that. Having a small total let us do that. We started outstanding with the ball, we have some really experienced players and they put their hands up today and set the game's tone for us. Still a big area of improvement for us, fielders were a little fumbly and we edged a lot of balls. It's important to get those really big partnerships. Kasperek showed us she deserves to be in there. Exciting to see her and Amelia Kerr bowling well."
3.11pm Leigh Kasperek is the Player of the Match for her three wickets. She says: "Playing the World Cup was the dream. Once I got to New Zealand (from Australia), there was no going back. Amelia, only 16, was outstanding. I thought overall we were pretty good. We were a little astray but we are looking forward to the next game (against Pakistan). Hopefully, I get to play that next game."
3.05pm The teams shake hands and the New Zealand camp have smiles plastered all over. Player-of-the-match announcements and word from the two captains soon. Stick around.
New Zealand are making a statement here. The pace at which they've scored has almost certainly ensured they climb over South Africa into fourth place
five more to win
A loss for New Zealand would dent their chances of a straightforward entry into the semi-final, while a defeat for West Indies would further hurt their net run-rate, which is already down in the negative
Leigh Kasperek last played an ODI in February 2016 and suffered multiple injuries after that but returned with figures of 10-6-17-3 when she got a chance to play West Indies on Thursday
A grand show from bowlers Lea Tahuhu and Leigh Kasperek, followed by a blitz from Rachel Priest, saw New Zealand canter home against West Indies