Congratulations to the West Indies. A well deserved and honourable draw.
Some thoughts on the match - bit limited since I had to check the score sporadically on cricinfo in the past two days.
-Enforcing the follow on is almost always the wrong move. The bowlers had 62 overs under their belt - give them the afternoon off and belt a few runs or collapse or whatever. Bowlers are not the motorcycles batsmen captains always seem to think they are and while batting again would have lost us overs I'll take fresh bowlers over more overs every time. Even with all the overs in the world exhausted bowlers won't trouble anyone, and now we have to carry tired bowlers into the second test match.
-We can't complain too much about Bravo's luck and the rain considering we did the same thing to South Africa with KW.
-The West Indies need to bring in some new bowlers. Calling Rampaul up would be good. Last I looked in detail Sammy is on one leg and Gabriel is itstl. I would be wary of playing two spinners since I think KW, Taylor, Anderson and Watling prefer spin to pace and have good records in Asia. Two spinners will probably keep in check/remove Fulton and Rutherford though
-The West Indies absolutely must bat first in the next test match unless they're playing in a paddock. Kill the New Zealand bowlers while they're down.
-This game has panned out sooooo Plunket Shield. Nip out the oppo/their top order quick smart only for the number eight and the surviving top order bat to stay in forever.
-I can't be too harsh on Wagner since domestically he has always been a slightly wayward attack swing bowler and now he's being asked to bang it in and back up Southee and Boult. Three fast medium opening swing bowlers in an attack always presents the danger of being both very samey and the bloke who has to bowl first change being unsuited to the job. Bracewell, Henry and Wheeler should come in for Southee/Boult only because of this. If Wagner is to be let go, someone in the mould of Gillespie, Milne, Bennett, Bartlett etc should play. Anyone who isn't primarily a fast medium swing bowler basically. We miss Iain O'Brien sometimes.
-For all the promise I read Sodhi showed, he still got carted most of the time. I would give him the series but with our opening bowlers we can get away with a spinner who doesn't tear through sides but builds pressure and keeps one end nailed down. The best exponent of that has made himself unavailable though and I can't think of someone else who fits that description. And no Jeets doesn't.
-These are the games which hurt the most for the fans. It feels like a loss, and makes you wonder whether there will be any pay off.
edit: in saying that we made a fair effort for a wonky batting unit and an attack with two and a half (depending on which wagner turns up) test standard specialist bowlers.