New Zealand Women face Australia in what is a do-or-die situation for both countries. The ICC Women’s World Cup, which has grabbed eyeballs around the cricket fraternity because of its amazing gameplay, is poised to have yet another nail-biter match between the two intimately connected cricketing countries.
It is no secret that New Zealand are struggling in this tournament. The loss to India exposed several cracks in New Zealand’s batting order, which became even more apparent in the next match with Bangladesh where they were bowled out for just 91 runs, making it their sixth-lowest score in T20 International matches.
Captain Sophie Devine knows that the team must improve ahead of the clash with Australia. She said,
“But look we’re really excited about that (match with Australia). Obviously, we wanted to get done with today and get the points in the bank and then it’s onto Australia who we’ve played a lot of cricket with and against and we’re really looking forward to it. Any time we come up against Australia, it doesn’t matter what sport it is, it’s going to be a big one. We’re looking forward to having a day off tomorrow and then getting stuck into them.”
Susie Bates’ form is also a worry with scores of 13, 6, and 15 in the tournament to-date. But Leigh Kasperek backed New Zealand’s big guns to fire against Australia.
“I think they’ll be a little bit disappointed in how they have gone,” Kasperek said.
“But when we’ve been training they’ve been hitting it really well and we’re really lucky we’ve got number one and number two in the world at the moment and the very fact that even today and against Sri Lanka, we got over the line when Suzie didn’t go well, but other people have been stepping up in the middle overs. You want your big players to step up in big games so hopefully, they can do that on Monday.”
India Women became the first team in the competition to qualify for the semis, with South Africa Women joining them. While India A topped Group A, the second team from the group is yet to be decided.
The winners of the match between the White Ferns and Australia Women will be the second-best team in the Group, and will qualify for the semis on March 5.
