Cricket: West Indies coach optimistic of seeing some spirit

Shimron Hetmyer batting. Photo / Photosport.co.nz

New Zealand rammed home their overall dominance of the West Indies at Seddon Park today.

They will most likely wrap up their second big win sometime tomorrow, with a day or more to spare, but some of the cricket played by the tourists has been desperately poor.

Somehow the batsmen have to find reserves of defiance and skill not sighted in abundance so far in this series, starting at 30 for two, needing a world record 444 to square the series.

Where there's life…..no that won't work here, although batting coach Toby Radford is optimistic of seeing some spirit tomorrow.

"I think what we are wanting is a lot of fight and to really show what we can do,'' he said last night.

''I'd love to see Kraigg (Brathwaite) and Shai (Hope) do something similar to what they achieved at Headingley against England a couple of months ago -- bat long, get a couple of hundreds and show people what we can really do."

Shimron Hetmyer batting. Photo / Photosport.co.nz

They batted magnificently in that test to push the West Indies to victory after having been poleaxed in three days a week earlier at Edgbaston.

Brathwaite is certainly a rock and a player with form for batting time, but he can't do it on his own.

There's an attacking mindset among most of the West Indian batsmen which is thrilling to watch but there's still plenty of test development to be done with the likes of Shimron Hetmyer, one of two batsmen dismissed late yesterday to a casual drive to mid off.

The West Indies bowlers plugged away determinedly for chunks of the day.

Seamer Miguel Cummins, certainly the pick of the bowlers over the two tests, produced one sizzling six-over spell after lunch in which he removed Kane Williamson and Henry Nicholls, had Mitchell Santner dropped by wicketkeeper Shane Dowrich above his head, and clunked the lefthander on his helmet too.

But the fielding was simply dreadful. Boundary work was shoddy, there were overthrows and misfields you would berate a first XI for making.

That is one area teams can make highly skillful and Ross Taylor last night admitted the bowlers had toiled honestly and with determination. However they were let down in the field.

How often has a second innings declaration been made late on the third day of a test? Not often but this game has moved swiftly.

If you've got tickets for day five tomorrow you're unlikely to need them based on what's been seen so far.

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