In the first match in Florida Tom Latham became the fifty fifth player to represent the BLACKCAPS in a Twenty20 International. At 20 years and 92 days he is the third youngest to play in Twenty20s after Adam Milne (18 years 257 days) and Tim Southee (19 years 56 days).
Following the unfortunate shoulder injury suffered by Ross Taylor in the first match, Kane Williamson took over as captain for the second international. At 21 years and 328 days he is the youngest player to captain New Zealand – by a long way. Stephen Fleming was the previous youngest being 23 years 319 days old when he captained the BLACKCAPS against England in 1996-97.
The two wickets claimed by Nathan McCullum in the second match took his overall tally to thirty six scalps and took him past Daniel Vettori as having the most wickets for New Zealand in Twenty20 Internationals.
Kyle Mills became just the eighth New Zealand bowler to bowl a maiden in a Twenty20 International. The only bowler to bowl more than one is Mark Gillespie and rather surprisingly he has bowled three.
In the first match only Ross Taylor, Tim Southee and Jacob Oram survived from the last BLACKCAPS team that played the West Indies in Hamilton in December 2008. Kyle Mills and Daniel Flynn who also played in that match came into the BLACKCAPS team for the second match. Of the West Indies players who played in that match only Chris Gayle, Kieron Pollard, Denesh Ramdin and FidelEdwards played in this series.
The West Indies packed a lot more experience in their line-up with their team in the first match having a combined international (Tests, ODIs and Twenty20s) of 1,355, with Chris Gayle providing 343 of those. New Zealand by comparison had a combined total of 826 matches. With the loss of Ross Taylor and Jacob Oram, the Black Caps' two most experienced players, the difference was even more marked in the second match with the West Indies going into the match with a tally of 1,320 matches to New Zealand's 650.
When Sunil Narine took four for 12 off his four overs in the second match these were the second best bowling figures against New Zealand after Umar Gul's five for six. It was also the most economical four over spell against the BLACKCAPS.
Martin Guptill came into this series as the No.1 ranked Twenty20 International batsman. This was on the back of an outstanding 2011-12 season when in six matches he scored 349 runs at an average of 116.33. He followed innings of 40*, 67 and 91* against Zimbabwe with scores of 78*, 47 and 26 against South Africa.
