Taylor pilots NZ on third morning

BRENDON McCullum and Corey Anderson gave it away but Ross Taylor was still around, piloting New Zealand to 249 for 5 at lunch on the third day of the third Test in Hamilton.

The West Indies spinners bowled the 25 of the 34 overs in the session, and New Zealand fared reasonably well against them. It was their own aggression that led to the downfall of McCullum and Anderson, while Taylor ticked along calmly, going past 450 runs for the series and coming within sight of his 11th Test hundred.
West Indies weren’t able to exert pressure to the extent they had on the second evening, when their specialist spinners Sunil Narine and Veerasammy Permaul bowled in tandem.
Instead, Darren Sammy gave himself a spell of nine overs at the start of the day, bowling alongside Narine. Permaul was introduced only some time after the first drinks break as West Indies worked with the old ball throughout the session.
While Sammy was steady and generated some reverse towards the end of his spell, the New Zealand batsmen were much more comfortable against his medium pace, and whatever pressure Narine exerted at the other end wasn’t maintained for long enough.
Brendon McCullum himself handed West Indies the breakthrough in the eighth over of the day. The New Zealand captain backed way to cut a sharply turning and bouncing off-break, found himself cramped for room, and edged for Sammy to take his third sharp catch of the innings, at slip.
Corey Anderson had an extremely nervy start against Narine as he played tentatively, expecting the carrom ball almost every delivery. It took him 13 balls to get off the mark, but he soon gained enough confidence to play his powerful strokes.
He cut and pulled Narine for three boundaries in the 88th over as the bowler, into his 36th successive over and 12th of the morning, dropped it short. Anderson had scored 39 in a 50-run stand with Taylor when he swung Permaul straight to deep square leg in the next over.

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