Martin Guptill gave the Wellington fans a memory that will never be forgotten as his magnificient unbeaten knock of 237 helped New Zealand crush West Indies by 143 runs to seal a place in the semi-finals of the ICC World Cup 2015.
After choosing to bat, New Zealand were off to a blistering start as their skipper and opening batsman Brendon McCullum went after both Windies pacers Jerome Taylor and Jason Holder before Taylor struck to get rid of him in the fifth over of the innings. Kane Williamson and Martin Guptill steadied the ship with their 62-run partnership before Williamson’s smooth innings of 33 got cut-short by some good bowling from Andre Russell. Guptill then got a great support from Ross Taylor and the duo added 143 runs for the third wicket and the former also brought up his second World Cup hundred. Guptill then lead the charge and smashed the Windies bowlers all around the park to bring up the first double hundred by a New Zealand player in ODIs. He hit a total of 24 fours and 11 sixes in his innings of 237, which means, that 68% of his runs came in boundaries.
Chasing a humongous total of 394, almost all the Windies batsmen including Chris Gayle got off to a great start but failed to make them count. Gayle, Darren Sammy and Holder all scored at a strike rate of above 160 but lost their wickets at wrong time, which resulted in West Indies getting all out for just 250. Trent Boult grabbed four key scalps and became the highest wicket-taker in the tournament so far.
Brief Scores: New Zealand 393/6 (Guptill 237*) defeat West Indies 250 (Gayle 61, Boult 4-44) by 143 runs