Napier: A uncharacteristically restrained century from opener Lou Vincent guided New Zealand to a comfortable 91-run victory over the West Indies in the fourth One-Dayer on Wednesday.
The home side scored a formidable 324-6 batting first but the West Indies could only manage 233-8 in their 50 overs, sealing the visitors' fourth straight defeat with one to play in the five-match series.
An undefeated 110 from Runako Morton was the highlight of the West Indies innings but it meant little to his team, which never got close to the required run rate.
Morton brought up his century in the 45th over off 142 balls, hitting seven fours while Kyle Mills was the best New Zealand bowler, taking 3-45 from his 10 overs.
Despite their unassailable lead in the series, New Zealand didn't ease off the pressure with Vincent hitting a disciplined 102 and sharing a 156-run second wicket partnership with in-form Nathan Astle.
Vincent, whose usual role is to get New Zealand off to a flying start, played an anchoring role through most of his innings, eventually amassing 10 fours and a six in his 117 ball knock. He was ably supported by Astle, following up his undefeated 118 at the weekend with 81.
"I was really impressed with Lou and how he sat back and allowed his innings to be the basis of our score. It's often harder for a player who has been given a role to create a strike rate to do that," skipper Stephen Fleming said.
After a sedate start in which Fleming and Vincent scored 36 runs off the first 10 overs, the skipper launched an extraordinary attack against the bowling of Ian Bradshaw and Deighton Butler to get New Zealand underway.
After taking more than 10 overs to reach 10, Fleming (67) had to face only another 10 balls to reach his half century.
His assault started with four boundaries off Bradshaw's sixth over. Butler's erratic first over started with three short balls wide of the off stump, all of which were struck by Fleming over the point boundary for six.
Another boundary off a short and wide ball from a rattled Bradshaw in the next over saw Fleming reach his 50 off 36 balls.
The erratic West Indies attack -- with the exception of speedster Fidel Edwards (0-23) and grafting offspinner Chris Gayle (3-50) -- was not helped by an ideal batting pitch, some poor fielding and two missed runouts in the early overs.
The mad scramble for runs in the final stages saw five New Zealand wickets fall for 55 runs in the last eight overs.
The West Indies were always struggling to get into themselves into contention in their innings.
Fleming said he was puzzled by the lack of aggression from the West Indies batsmen.
"I'm not too sure what their tactics were. Whether we were able to take wickets at key times, I never got the feeling that were they coming hard at us," he said.
The rot started in the third over with Chris Gayle (5), who was LBW to Kyle Mills, not offering a shot to a ball which straightened on him.
The wickets of Ganga (15) and Ramdin (10) hampered the building of the big partnership required to get within reach of New Zealand's big score.
Sarwan (42) and Morton put on 69 runs for the fourth wicket and Morton combined with Chanderpaul put on another 79 runs for the fifth wicket but the visitors never got close enough to the required run rate.
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