Hetmyer's 69* Wins the Final, But New Zealand Take the Series 3-2 — A Complete Review

 

Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados. Monday evening. The series was already decided — New Zealand had won it 3-1 with their one-wicket thriller here on Saturday — but West Indies had promised themselves, and their supporters, that they would not let the final ODI of the series become a formality. They nearly did not. They nearly won. And in the end, with Shimron Hetmyer striking 69 not out from 64 balls and West Indies chasing 269 off the last ball, the result went to the home side — West Indies won the 5th ODI by 2 wickets with 15 balls to spare — in a match that was simultaneously a consolation and a statement.

New Zealand won the series 3-2. But the final scoreline flatters the visitors slightly. What actually happened across five matches in Providence and Bridgetown was a series that swung dramatically on conditions, individual performances, and moments — the kind of series that produces a Player of the Series winner who played for the losing team in the final match.

That winner was Jayden Lennox. The 19-year-old left-arm wrist spinner who had never played a senior professional match before his ODI debut in the second match of this series finished as Player of the Series with 14 wickets. In five matches. In his first five international appearances. That number — 14 wickets, more than any other bowler on either side — tells you almost everything you need to know about what this series was and why it will be remembered.

The 5th ODI: Hetmyer's Redemption, New Zealand's Final Stumble

New Zealand batted first in the series finale and posted 268 for 9 — a total that looked competitive on the Kensington Oval surface but was, as it turned out, about 20 runs below what the match required to be safe. Will Young made 67 from the top of the order — his best ODI score of the tour. Tom Latham contributed 52 in his characteristically patient style. But New Zealand's middle order failed to accelerate convincingly in the final fifteen overs, and Gudakesh Motie's left-arm spin — 1 for 32 from 9.4 overs — kept the scoring rate below what several of New Zealand's batters were capable of.

Matthew Fisher's 3 for 40 and Mitchell Santner's 2 for 36 had suggested in the 4th ODI that New Zealand's bowling was good enough to restrict West Indies below any target they set. The same attack, in the same conditions twenty-four hours later, did not produce the same result. The difference was Shimron Hetmyer.

Hetmyer had been brought into the West Indies side for the Bridgetown matches specifically because the Kensington Oval surfaces — flatter, faster, less spin-friendly than Providence — suited his style of batting: hard-hitting, front-foot, attacking any ball that was not full and straight. He made 27 in the 4th ODI. In the 5th, he batted through the innings from the moment West Indies were struggling at 134 for 5 in the 30th over — a position that would have meant defeat in most ODIs at this ground.

His partnership of 96 unbroken with Amir Jangoo, who made 51 from number seven, was the difference between West Indies winning and losing this match. Hetmyer's 69 not out came from 64 balls and included three sixes — one off Jacob Duffy in the 43rd over that cleared the boundary at long-on with a swing that suggested he had not been thinking about survival but about the gap between where the ball landed and the rope. He finished it with a six off the penultimate over that took West Indies past the target. The Kensington Oval stood for him. It was the kind of innings that a home crowd in a consolation match deserved — genuine quality in difficult circumstances against decent bowling.

The Series In Full: Five Matches, Five Stories

To understand what this series was, you have to understand what each match produced individually — because no two of the five matches were alike, and that variety is precisely what made the series worth watching from start to finish.

1st ODI, Providence (July 11): West Indies won by 7 wickets. India's debut spinners dominated — Vitel Lawes took 3 for 54 in his first professional match ever, triggering New Zealand's collapse from 234 for 4 to 267 all out. Carty made 95, Hope 87 not out. A one-wicket defeat in Barbados was West Indies' third loss in a row. This was their high point — dominant, tactical, everything working.

2nd ODI, Providence (July 13): New Zealand won by 5 wickets. Lennox struck again — 5 for 19, the third-best bowling figures by a New Zealand spinner in ODI history — and West Indies collapsed from 63 for 0 to 138 all out. New Zealand chased it with wobbles but won with 104 balls to spare. The series was level, and the narrative had been reset completely.

3rd ODI, Providence (July 16): New Zealand won by 6 wickets. Their most controlled performance of the series — the pitch was turning, Lennox and Santner shared eight wickets, and New Zealand's batting was precise without being spectacular. West Indies bowled out for 140. New Zealand cruised it in under 40 overs. At 2-1, New Zealand were in command.

4th ODI, Bridgetown (July 19): New Zealand won by 1 wicket. The series' defining match — played in Bridgetown on the same day the cricket world farewelled Sir Garry Sobers, whose Kensington Oval connection made the venue feel particularly loaded on that particular afternoon. West Indies made 188, Jangoo top-scoring with 51 and Motie contributing 41 late. New Zealand's chase collapsed from 149 for 5 to 149 for 9 as Motie took a five-wicket haul that was as good as any bowling performance of the series. Mitchell Santner, batting at number eight, made 34 not out from 56 balls — hitting every single run scored off the bat in the final push — to get New Zealand home by one wicket. The visitors just about held their nerve in a chase of 189 to take an unassailable 3-1 lead in the ODI series.

5th ODI, Bridgetown (July 21): West Indies won by 2 wickets. Hetmyer's 69 not out, Jangoo's 51. New Zealand 268 for 9, West Indies 269 for 8. A consolation win, yes — but a convincing statement that on Kensington Oval's flat, fast surface, West Indies' batting is capable of chasing anything when their best players are available and in form.

Jayden Lennox: The Series Within the Series

Fourteen wickets in five ODIs. In your first five senior professional appearances of any kind. At the age of 19. On surfaces — Providence's turning, stopping pitches — that were specifically prepared to assist exactly what Lennox does. Those qualifications matter. But they do not diminish what he achieved, because the qualification that counts most is that international batters — experienced, well-prepared, aware of what Lennox was doing — still could not consistently play him. His five-wicket haul in the 2nd ODI was the performance that defined the series. His contributions in the 3rd ODI confirmed it was not a one-off.

Player of the Series for the bowling side in a series the batting side ultimately lost 3-2 is a distinction that does not always happen — usually the series winner produces the player of the series winner. Here, Lennox won it for New Zealand despite West Indies winning the last match. That tells you how dominant his bowling was across the first three games.

As we covered in detail in our full report on the first ODI and our second ODI match report, the emergence of young spinners on both sides — Lennox for New Zealand, Vitel Lawes for West Indies — was the defining storyline of a series that could have been unremarkable. Instead it produced two debut performances of genuine quality, a one-wicket thriller, and a final match that went to the last over. For a five-match ODI series between two teams neither of whom is currently in the top three of the WTC or ODI rankings, that is an exceptional return.

West Indies: Where Does This Leave Them?

West Indies lost the series 3-2 — but the manner of that loss contains as much encouragement as discouragement, which is not a verdict you can reach on every series result. Their 5th ODI win showed that on Kensington Oval in July, against a quality New Zealand side, they can chase 269 and win. Hetmyer at six, Jangoo at seven — a lower-middle order that can contribute 96 unbroken in a chase when everything above it has failed — is genuine batting depth.

The concerns are equally clear. West Indies' top order — Hope, Campbell, Auguste, Carty — produced one fifty-plus partnership across the four completed innings in Providence. On the spinning surfaces that Providence's groundstaff prepared, their batters looked uncertain against sharp turn in a way that suggests the home pitch conditions may have been as uncomfortable for West Indies as for New Zealand. That is a problem. If you cannot bat comfortably on your own pitch, you cannot consistently win at home.

Shai Hope's captaincy has been thoughtful throughout — his tactical decisions in the field have generally been correct, and his batting has provided the anchor role that West Indies need. But as Amir Jangoo put it after the 4th ODI defeat — "a difficult pill to swallow" — the series leaves West Indies knowing they were competitive without being consistently good enough. The difference between those two things is what the World Cup qualification pathway in 2027 will expose if it is not addressed.

New Zealand: Santner's Legacy

Mitchell Santner's series as captain deserves a specific mention beyond the result. He won a series in the Caribbean — always difficult — with a team that had travel-weary players coming off the back of a historic Test series win in England. He managed Lennox correctly — not overbowling him, protecting him when conditions were easy, using him aggressively when the pitch was doing something. He batted number eight and made match-winning contributions twice. And he delivered the post-match comments of a captain who is entirely comfortable with the decisions he made, whether they worked or not.

New Zealand are currently the most complete white-ball ODI side outside India and England. Their depth — Latham, Young, Chapman, Mitchell, Santner, Bracewell, Fisher, Duffy, Lennox — covers batting, pace, allround, and spin without obvious weaknesses. The World Cup in South Africa in 2027 is still eighteen months away. New Zealand will be there. And if Lennox is still developing at the rate he showed in this series, they will arrive with a bowling attack that nobody has yet found a reliable answer to. That, on the evidence of five matches in Providence and Bridgetown, is a terrifying prospect for every team in the tournament.

Do you think Jayden Lennox can sustain this level across different surfaces and conditions — or was Providence specifically designed to produce exactly this kind of spell? And does West Indies' 5th ODI win give you optimism or pessimism about their World Cup chances in 2027? Drop your thoughts in the comments below.