Brathwaite Heroics in vain as West Indies nearly Brush Kiwi's in a thriller.

In the Second match of the day played at old trafford manchester, tournament witnessed another thriller with west Indies nearly stunning kiwi's in a close fought contest.
West indies only fell short by 5 runs after a destructive batting display earlier in the day. West indies who ealier in the day put kiwi's to bat first got of to a flier as sheldon cotrell trapped  guptill of the very first ball. In the fifth ball of that first over he got dangerous colin munro to have nz reeling on 7-2, after that experienced ross taylor and skipper kane Williamson joined together to does the rescue. Both put on a 160 run stand for the third wicket before taylor was dismissed by gayle on 69, but on the other hand Williamson continued to play his shots and reached his second successive ton of the event. Williamson was dismissed on a superb 148 by cotrell, james neesham also provided some assistance to the team total with a handy 28. In the alloted fifty overs kiwi reach a competitive 291-8,for west indies sheldon cotrell was the star with bowl who picked up 4-30 followed by Carlos Brathwaite who also picked up a couple of wickets.
Chasing a stiff target of 292 west indies never look settled as they kept on losing wickets on the regular intervals. Boult rocked the top order after he dismissed hope and pooran cheaply to have west Indies reeling at 20-2 but gayle and hetmyer took them past 100 run mark. Both of them put on a solid 122 run stand for the third wicket with gayle first time in this tournament looking dangerous. As hetmyer was dismissed on 54 by ferguson Westindies started to collapse. They lost 4 wickets for just 22 runs and slumped from 142-3 to 164-7. But Carlos Braithwaite had some other ideas in mind. He kept on holding the one end to have some twist. Firstly he joined roach and then cotrell to put on the crucial stands for the eighth and ninth wickets, but wickets were tumbling at the other end. After Cotrell was out West Indies were on 245 nearly done. But brathwaite continued to play some dangerous cricket as he cracked a superb ton to put kiwis on the bars. He and oshane thomas who didn't even open his account was involved in a 41 run stand with brathwaite for the tenth wicket. With job nearly done and west Indies only a hit away from a resounding win, james neesham ended up the story by dismissing brathwaite to hand West indies a defeat by just five runs in a thriller.
For new zealand Trent boult picked up four wickets and lockie ferguson who is having a good tournament also picked up three crucial wickets.  With this win new Zealand is the second team after india to remain unbeaten in this event and also boosted their chances for reaching in top four. The gap now between the top two and bottom six is getting wider with not much of a chance left for the bottom four teams on points table.

Match summary
New Zealand 291-8 overs 50
Williamson 148
Taylor 69
Cotrell 4-56
Brathwaite 2-58
West indies 287 overs 49
Brathwaite 101
Gayle 87
Boult 4-30
Ferguson 3-59
Nz won by 5 runs.