New Zealand's captain Stephen Fleming was furious after his side's dramatic last-ball defeat against West Indies in the fifth one-day international on Sunday, blaming "incompetent" match officials for New Zealand's failure to square the series. "There were a whole lot of problems with the scoreboard throughout the day," said Fleming. "Both umpires admitted pretty much that they made a mistake and it's just basic incompetence, which the match referee agrees with.

"We have had a formal meeting with the umpires in terms of my disgust at their incompetence. The match referee will deal with it accordingly.

"The bottom line is that it's hurt us and left more of a sour taste than was already there."

The manually updated scoreboard had struggled throughout the day to keep pace with the high-scoring match, and indicated that Paul Hitchcock, who was bowling despite a stress fracture of his left fibula, had completed his full quota of ten overs.

Fleming was convinced that Hitchcock had only bowled nine, and he was later shown to be correct. At one point, when Hitchcock had bowled seven overs, the scoreboard already had him down as bowling ten.

With Hitchcock a specialist death bowler in one-day cricket, New Zealand will feel it was unlikely that he would have been pummelled for 18 runs off the final over, as Daryl Tuffey was.

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