WOMEN'S T20 WORLD CUP PREVIEW - NEW ZEALAND: The Cricketer takes a look at the strengths, weaknesses and key players for the White Ferns ahead of this year's tournament in Australia...
Coach: Bob Carter
Captain: Sophie Devine
Last time: Group stage
Previous best: Runners-up (2009, 2010)
Suzie Bates: Nobody has scored more runs in women’s T20Is. That’s a pretty useful weapon to have in your arsenal. With 881 runs at 33.88, Bates - who represented her country in basketball at the 2008 Beijing Olympics - is also the leading run-scorer in the history of the tournament.
She is one of only two women (Stafanie Taylor the other) to have recorded six scores of fifty or more in T20 World Cups - her unbeaten 94 against Pakistan at Sylhet in 2014 represents the competition’s fourth-highest score. Add 49 T20I wickets into the mix and New Zealand have themselves a pretty fearsome allrounder at their disposal.
Bates has long been a leading figure in the women’s game. The 32-year-old was named player of the tournament at the 50-over World Cup in 2013 - where she was the leading run-scorer by a distance - and in 2016, she became the first cricketer to win both the ICC Women’s ODI and T20I Player of the Year awards.
Bates stepped down from the captaincy role in 2018 but the allrounder remains a pillar in this White Ferns side.
Spinner Leigh Kasperek
Sophie Devine: In their recently appointed skipper, New Zealand have another allrounder-shaped trump card. With 26 at 15.50, only four women have taken more T20 World Cup wickets than the captain and her 520 runs, including two fifties, puts her in the top 10 leading run-scorers in women’s T20 World Cup history.
In New Zealand’s only T20I series of 2019, Devine - who has also represented her country in hockey - showed her all-round class, averaging 51 and picking up four wickets as her side sent India to a 3-0 series defeat on home soil.
In 2015, she hammered the fastest women’s T20I fifty - with her half-century coming from just 18 balls. The 30-year-old smashed five fours and eight sixes on her way to 70 off 22 against India at Bengaluru. Devine holds two of the top five half-centuries, having registered a 21-ball fifty against Ireland in 2018.
Having struck 769 runs at 76.90 in 16 matches and taken 19 wickets for Adelaide Strikers in this year’s Women’s Big Bash League, Devine enters the 2020 in fine form.
WOMEN'S CRICKET NEWS
Leigh Kasperek: Only Devine (80) has taken more T20I wickets for New Zealand than Edinburgh-born Kasperek who has 58 to her name, with 17 of those coming across two World Cups. The spinner topped the wicket-taking charts - alongside Devine and Deandra Dottin - at the 2016 edition of the tournament as New Zealand advanced as group winners, having won all four of their pool matches, before falling at semi-final stage against West Indies.
The 27-year-old’s 58 T20I scalps have come at an average of 12,93 and economy rate of 6.17, while her 17 tournament wickets have come at 10.88 and 5.36 respectively.
Captain Sophie Devine
With Bates and Devine at the heart of the side, both have played in every Women’s T20 World Cup, New Zealand have a wealth of experience and top-class leaders. The seasoned campaigners will provide a perfect sounding board for the next generation.
The likes of Amelia Kerr, who hit headlines in 2018 for smashing 232* off 145 balls before taking 5-17 in an odd against Ireland at Dublin, will be aiming to show what the younger generation have to offer New Zealand in the years to come.
The White Ferns struggled to take wickets in their recent ODI series against South Africa - taking just nine across three matches, all of which resulted in defeats. New Zealand will need that to change on the World Cup stage if they are to progress to their first final since the second edition of the tournament in 2010.
Sophie Devine (c), Suzie Bates, Lauren Down, Maddy Green, Holly Huddleston, Hayley Jensen, Leigh Kasperek, Amelia Kerr, Jess Kerr, Rosemary Mair, Katey Martin, Katie Perkins, Anna Peterson, Rachel Priest, Lea Tahuhu
February 22: New Zealand v Sri Lanka (WACA, Perth)
February 27: India v New Zealand (Junction Oval, Melbourne)
February 29: New Zealand v Bangladesh (Junction Oval, Melbourne)
March 1: Australia v New Zealand (Junction Oval, Melbourne)
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