The West Indies endured another painful batting collapse as they slumped to an eight-wicket defeat against New Zealand in the fifth and final T20 International at the University Oval in Dunedin on Thursday, surrendering the five-match series 3–1.

After being sent in to bat, the Caribbean side never recovered from a disastrous start that saw four wickets tumble in the space of 11 balls. The scoreboard read a precarious 21 for 4 after just 2.5 overs and 48 for 5 after 6.2, before the innings eventually folded for 140 in 18.4 overs.

Roston Chase offered brief resistance with a top score of 38, while Romario Shepherd contributed 36 and Jason Holder added 20. Their efforts, however, were not enough to salvage a respectable total against a disciplined New Zealand attack led by Jacob Duffy. The seamer finished with figures of 4 for 35, becoming the third-fastest New Zealand bowler to reach 50 T20 international wickets.

In reply, the Black Caps made light work of the chase, cruising to 141 for 2 in just 15.4 overs with 26 balls to spare. Devon Conway anchored the innings with an unbeaten 47 from 42 deliveries, while Tim Robinson blasted 45 from 24 in a brisk 69-run opening stand.

Romario Shepherd (1 for 21) and Shamar Springer (1 for 8) were the only West Indian bowlers to make breakthroughs.

Speaking after the match, West Indies captain Shai Hope admitted that the team’s struggles in the early overs have been a recurring issue throughout the series.

“Powerplay has been our Achilles heel for this series. Unfortunately, as batters, we didn’t assess and adapt to it as quickly as we should have—or wanted to, I should say—but credit still must be given to the guys in the lower half for putting their hands up,” Hope said.

“We may have given them a bit too much work to do in the back end as batters, but it’s certainly an area that we need to improve quickly going into this ODI series as well. Take all the learnings that we could have gained from this series—whether it’s the lengths that they bowled or the conditions that we faced—but yeah, I still also think we need to focus on the positives. From a bowling standpoint, ‘40’ was excellent in the powerplay. The guys have been fielding pretty well—there are areas that we can improve, yes, but you still have to take the positives from it.”

With the T20 series now wrapped up in favour of the hosts, both teams will turn their attention to the three-match One Day International series, which bowls off on Saturday in Christchurch.