Jaime How's run of bad form has forced the selectors hands, as they were faced with no choice but to drop him for the remaining two ODIs against the West Indies. His axing has made way for the young Martin Guptill of Auckland, who made a sensational debut for the Black Caps by scoring a brilliant 122 not out.

Guptill has been knocking on the door for a while now, and has experience playing in the New Zealand A team, including tours to Australia and India last season. His form in this years domestic competition has been very good, including 124 off 97 balls against Northern Districts.

Guptill becomes another in a long line of top order batsmen for the Black Caps in recent years, but if his start is anything to go by then he could just be the answer to the Black Caps problems. Already Daniel Flynn and Jessie Ryder have benefited from Andy Moles tutelage, and Guptill could well benefit from Moles' influence.

As for Jaime How - well, he's going to have to go back to the domestic level and try to regain the form we know he's capable of. If he can manage to do that, then he may have a chance to regain his place in the team for the series against India, but at this stage it's going to take a lot of work by How to regain his place. His one advantage is that he has been working with Martin Crowe on his batting, so who knows?

There may be hope.

His fate is in his own hands, at least, but you've got to wonder how many more chances the selectors will be prepared to give him. Just look at Matthew Sinclair - he's in blistering form this season, but the chances of retaining his return spot with the Black Caps are very slim.

Could this be the last we'll see of Jaime How?

We'll just have to wait and see.