Guptill hits highest World Cup score in Kiwi victory

New Zealand’s Martin Guptill made the highest score in World Cup history with 237 not out against West Indies to send his team into the semi-finals.

His 163-ball innings in Wellington featured 11 sixes and 24 fours and beat the 215 made by West Indies’ Chris Gayle earlier in the tournament.

Guptill, 28, hit 137 from his last 52 balls to help his side post 393-6.

Trent Boult then took four early wickets as New Zealand bowled out the Windies for 250 to seal a 143-run win.

Gayle’s 33-ball 61, featuring eight sixes, entertained the crowd as the Caribbean side scored at a furious pace.

But they continued to lose wickets at regular intervals and were bowled out in 30.3 overs to spark jubilant scenes in the capital.

New Zealand, semi-finalists for the seventh time, will now face South Africa in Auckland on Tuesday, with both seeking a first World Cup final appearance.

Guptill’s score was the second best in one-day international history behind Rohit Sharma’s 264 and propelled the Black Caps to the highest total in a World Cup knockout match.

Having ended a run of 21 innings without a century in New Zealand’s previous match against Bangladesh, he became the fifth player to make an ODI double hundred.

He joined Indians Sharma, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag, and Gayle in the exclusive club.

His effort was also the fourth highest score in all List A cricket - limited-overs games that are not Twenty20s.

Opener Guptill, who was dropped on four by Marlon Samuels, already held the record for the best ODI score by a New Zealander, having made an unbeaten 189 against England in 2013.

But this effort, played out in front of a raucous Wellington crowd in a home quarter-final, ensured his place in World Cup and New Zealand cricket history.

The right-hander, who began by driving the first ball of the innings for four, heaved six after six over the leg-side boundary after reaching his century.

The 10th of his sixes went out of the ground and landed on the roof of the “Cake Tin” stadium.

He shared a partnership of 143 with Ross Taylor, whose patient 42 was the second highest score in the Kiwi innings.

Guptill, who made his second hundred from only 41 balls, beat the previous best World Cup knockout score of 149 by Australia’s Adam Gilchrist.

He also became the first New Zealander to score hundreds in consecutive World Cup innings and the first of his countrymen to bat through the full 50 overs three times in ODIs.

Gayle became the first man to make a World Cup double hundred against Zimbabwe in Canberra on 24 February.

But his record lasted only 25 days, with Gayle congratulating Guptill on the field when the New Zealander surpassed his score.

Man-of-the-match Martin Guptill: “It’s a pretty cool feeling to be fair. We had a couple of good partnerships early to set us up to explode at the end.

“We were trying to take each ball as it comes and rotate the strike. We did that well and it worked out.

“After I got 100 I thought I should hit some boundaries. It was the quickest outfield I have played on here and you got value for shots.

“It was an incredible crowd. We will let this one sink in tonight and focus on the semi-finals tomorrow. We have work to do so I can’t focus on it too much.”

Former New Zealand captain Jeremy Coney: “Martin Guptill dazzled. He turned this stadium into a little carnival. He hit the ball so cleanly, drives that you’ve never seen anything like. He thoroughly deserves all the accolades he’s getting.”

Former India batsman Rahul Dravid: “It was incredible. Unbelievable. Some of the hitting after he reached 100… you were surprised when it didn’t go for a four or six - that became an event. Everything was in the zone, no matter where West Indies bowled it. Some of the sixes were huge.”

(BBC)

SCOREBOARD

New Zealand innings 
Martin Guptill not out 			       237
Brendon McCullum c Holder b Taylor 		12
Kane Williamson c Gayle b Russell 		33
Ross Taylor run out (Ramdin/Benn) 		42
Corey Anderson c Gayle b Russell 		15
Grant Elliot lbw b Taylor 			27
Luck Ronchi c Benn b Taylor 			09
Daniel Vettori not out 				08
Extras (lb 2, w 7, nb 1) 			10
TOTAL (6 wickets; 50 overs) 		       393

Did not bat: Trent Boult, Adam Milne, Tim Southee. 
Fall of wickets: 1-27 (McCullum), 2-89 (Williamson)
		 3-232 (Taylor), 4-278 (Anderson)
		 5-333 (Elliot), 6-365 (Ronchi)
Bowling: Taylor 7-0-71-3
	 Holder 8-0-76-0
	 Benn 10-1-66-0
	 Russell 10-0-96-2
	 Sammy 8-0-38-0
	 Samuels 7-0-44-0

West Indies innings 
Chris Gayle b Milne 				61
Johnson Charls b Boult 				03
Lendl Simmons c Guptill b Boult 		12
Marlon Samuels c Vetteri b Boult 		27
Denesh Ramdin lbw b Boult 			00
Jonathan Carter b Vetteri 			32
Darren Sammy c Ronchi b Anderson 		27
Andre Russell b Southee 			20
Jason Holder c Anderson b Vettori 		42
Jerome Taylor c Guptill b Southee 		11
Sulieman Benn not out 				09
Extras (w 6) 					06
TOTAL (all out in  30.3 overs)		       250

Fall of wickets: 1-4 (Charles), 2-27 (Simmons)
		 3-80 (Samuels), 4-80 (Ramdin)
		 5-120 (Gayle), 6-166 (Sammy)
		 7-173 (Carter), 8-201 (Russell)
		 9-221 (Taylor), 10-250 (Holder)
Bowling: Southee 8-1-82-2
	 Boult 10-3-44-4
	 Vetteri 6.3-0-58-2
	 Milne 4-0-42-1
	 Anderson 2-0-24-1