New Zealand survive Motie’s five-for to clinch the ODI series

New Zealand needed a scare, a five-wicket haul against them and a captain’s steady head to get over the line in Bridgetown, but they got there. Their one-wicket win in the fourth ODI on July 19 gave them an unbeatable 3-1 lead over West Indies at Kensington Oval, and with it the series, even if the manner of it will have aged Mitchell Santner a year or two.

Motie’s day, and the wrong result

Gudakesh Motie will remember this one for a long time, and not entirely fondly. The left-arm spinner produced the innings of his one-day career with the ball, taking 5 for 47 for a maiden ODI five-wicket haul, and then top-scored for West Indies with a quickfire 41 lower down the order. On most days that is a match-winning contribution from one player. This was not most days.

Sent in after New Zealand won the toss and chose to field, West Indies never built the platform their bowlers deserved. They were bowled out for 188 inside 45 overs, a total that always looked light once the pitch had been read. Motie’s runs down the order at least gave the attack something to defend, and for a while it looked like it might be enough.

Chapman’s charge, then the wobble

New Zealand’s reply ran on Mark Chapman. He raced to 80 from 82 balls, eight fours and four sixes in it, and at 142 for 5 the chase looked as good as done. Then Chapman went, and the innings caught the same nerves that had troubled West Indies all night. From a position of comfort New Zealand added just 47 more while losing four wickets across the last 19 overs, Motie in the thick of it as the required rate stayed low but the wickets kept tumbling.

Santner, unbeaten on 34 from 56 balls, was the man left to finish it, and he almost did not. Three runs short of the target he skied a miscue into the outfield that dropped safe, one of those moments a chasing side either laughs about later or rues for months. New Zealand laughed. Santner knocked off the winning runs with Jayden Lennox alongside him, and the tourists were home by a single wicket with 35 balls to spare on paper, far less comfort than that number suggests.

Series wrapped, one to play

The win means New Zealand cannot be caught with the fifth ODI still to come. It is an away series taken the hard way rather than handed over, another line on a captaincy record Santner has been building since he took the white-ball job at the end of 2024. West Indies, for their part, will look at 188 and know the series was lost with the bat, not the ball. Motie gave them everything on the night. The batting around him did not.

There is still a dead rubber to play, back at Kensington Oval on July 21, and West Indies will want something to show from a series that has slipped away in the space of three defeats. For New Zealand the job is already done.

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