COACH JOHN Dyson has praised the West Indies performance in New Zealand and especially so in the drawn contest in Napier which earned the tourists a 0-0 draw in the two-match series.

According to the Australian, a draw was better than a loss and looking back at the West Indies performance since 1995, more so when one remembers that they lost their last three series against New Zealand without even winning a match, that is definitely a fact.

With the West Indies trailing New Zealand on first innings in both matches, with Sewnarine Chatter-goon, Xavier Marshall, Ramnaresh Sarwan and Denesh Ramdin failing to deliver and the batting depending once again on Shivnarine Chan-derpaul and captain Chris Gayle with support from newcomer Brendan Nash, and with the bowlers once again proving too inconsistent, some may say that the West Indies performance was no big thing and it was business as usual.

Although everything depended on Chanderpaul - 76 not out and 126 not out in three innings and Gayle - 74, 34 and 197, it was pleasing to see not only the experienced Nash, and definitely so as far as first-class cricket is concerned, stepping into the breach on a few occasions with 23, 74 and 65, but also to witness, to see, the West Indies, with bat in hand, standing up and fighting and beating back the opposition.

Excellent partnership

In the second Test match, for example, the West Indies were falling at 74 for four in the first innings before, with the left-handers Chanderpaul and Nash sharing a partnership of 161 in 54.1 overs, recovering to 235 for five on their way to a respectable 307.

In the second innings, after trailing by 64 runs, the Windies were buckling at 106 for four before, with the left-handers Gayle and Nash sharing a partnership of 124 in 55.3 overs, recovering to 230 for five on their way to 375.

Controlled innings by skipper Gayle

In that second innings, the usually explosive, swashbuckling Gayle, batting for 514 minutes while facing 396 deliveries, hitting seven glorious sixes and stroking 20 wonderful fours, controlled himself and batted like he wanted to bat forever.

Unfortunately, the gods were unkind to Gayle when, three runs short of a well-deserved double century, he swung at offspinner Jeetan Patel and the ball, after hitting the bottom edge of his bat, dropped on to the boot of Brendon McCullum, flew into the air, and was easily caught by the grateful and jubilant wicketkeeper.

The best of the fightbacks, however, came in the rain-ruined first Test in Dunedin when, with the West Indies on 173 for six replying to 365 and in serious trouble, fast bowler Jerome Taylor joined Chanderpaul and proceeded to play the innings of his life, what, hopefully, will be the beginning of things to come.

In an innings which lasted for 138 minutes, Taylor not only shared a partnership of 153 in 34 overs with Chanderpaul, but in doing so, the pacer rattled up 106 runs while facing a mere 107 deliveries and while reeling off some exciting strokes - strokes which brought him three sixes and 17 fours.

Wonderful batting

In congratulating, Chanderpaul, Gayle, Nash and Taylor for some wonderful batting, we should also remember the bowling of Fidel Edwards in the first innings of the second Test.

In 29.4 overs, the fast bowler took seven wickets for 87 runs and that was good bowling.

Should Dyson be really satisfied with the draw?

New Zealand are not as strong as they were the last time the two teams met, they were just coming off a hiding by Australia who subsequently were embarrassed by South Africa and, because of the present state of New Zealand's cricket, some may consider it an opportunity missed.

Looking at West Indies cricket, however, looking at the fact that only a few players performed, a draw was a good result.

Chanderpaul, Gayle, Nash and Taylor batted well, and there can be no question about that, and Edwards, in one innings, did bowl well.

The performance of the other members of the team, however, was so disappointing that had one decision gone against Chanderpaul, Gayle or Nash, the West Indies could easily have lost the second Test.

Apart from the batting of Chattergoon, Sarwan and Marshall, plus the bowling of Daren Powell and company, another disappointment was the selection of the team for the first Test match.

With New Zealand's left-arm spinner Daniel Vettori taking six wickets for 56 runs off 25 overs in the West Indies only innings and offspinner Patel two, with the West Indies going into the Test match with four pace bowlers and no specialist spin bowler, with part-time slow bowler Gayle bringing himself on before lunch on the first day of the match, it was obvious that the West Indies should have selected a specialist spin bowler - one who spins the ball, one who flights the ball and one whose job is to take wickets.

The rain fell, regardless of who were selected as bowlers, the match would have ended in a draw and one will never know.

The fact of the matter, however, is that New Zealand's specialist spin bowler picked up eight of the 10 wickets between them and whereas the Windies pacers, Taylor, Powell, Edwards and Lionel Baker, returned figures of 1-61 off 23 overs, 3-68 off 24, 3-91 off 22 and 0-85 off 25, respectively , their part-time spinner preened himself with 3-42 off 21 overs.