Exploring Another New Low For The New Zealand Women's Cricket Team In ODI Series Sweep vs England
The New Zealand Women's cricket team were swept aside 0-3 by England in their ODI series which takes them to a 1-5 tally vs England in ODIs this year. In keeping with the White Ferns theme of worsening mediocrity, New Zealand went from a competitive but comprehensive series defeat in home conditions earlier this year to being embarrassed in England during this series.
White Ferns batted first in all three games with scores of 141 and 156 in the first two games wrapping up this series. While NZ was rolled for scores less than 160, England cruised to victory in their chases and only lost 3 wickets in these losses. As White Ferns tend to do, they had their best performance when it didn't matter, scoring 211/8 in the third game only for England to chase that down with ease in reaching 212/5.
NZ lost the first two games of the home series vs England earlier this year and then won the third game. After that victory, Sophie Devine spun some positive yarns...
"But just a fantastic all-around team performance, and I guess it probably validates the work that we're doing behind the scenes and knowing that when we get things right, we're going to be a hard team to beat."
That was followed by this series sweep in England. There isn't much to digest in the individual performances aside from more concern about the state of White Ferns cricket. Brooke Halliday and Amelia Kerr were the only White Ferns to have a 50+ score in this series. A new development of White Ferns woes is a lack of funk in the batting department, which is evident in A-Kerr and Halliday having strike-rates below 70. Only two batters had strike-rates over 90 in this series and this can be stretched out to three batters having strike-rates over 80.
White Ferns are not playing with any freedom or positive intent, as many cricketing folk love to suggest teams should. NZ is going backwards with their scoring rates which flows throughout the six games against England this year. 14 batters have scored ODI runs this year for NZ and only two have strike-rates over 90.
Batting first, White Ferns didn't score enough runs to genuinely challenge England but those totals could have been defended if NZ's bowling attack had a slither of potency. Instead the White Ferns took 8 wickets of a possible 30 and only half of the eight bowlers used managed to snare a wicket. The best bowler was Halliday and if that's the case, White Ferns have dipped further into the abyss of their woes.
Not only are White Ferns struggling to take wickets, they can't contain opposition batters. One of the eight bowlers conceded less than 5rpo in this series sweep and no White Ferns bowler sits below 4.5rpo in ODIs vs England this year. Amelia Kerr conceded 6.3rpo as the busiest bowler of this series, Devine conceded 6rpo as skipper and Fran Jonas was blasted for 8.1rpo in her appearances.
White Ferns don't score enough runs, they don't attack to get the runs they do score, they don't take wickets and all the bowlers are expensive for ODI cricket. This is the blueprint for the most underwhelming team in Aotearoa sport right now with other matters such as fielding implosions, weird team culture vibes and goofy selections sprinkled on top.
Mikaela Greig was celebrated as earning selection and a fresh contract. That led to no game time, in keeping with White Ferns selection policy. Also in that policy is putting players in obtuse roles and expecting them to perform. Lauren Down was the latest victim of baffling White Ferns selection stuff, starting with her squad selection after not playing cricket for a year; Down enjoyed Kane Williamson levels of selection faith.
As the preview of this tour laid out, Down does not deserve that selection faith and she isn't even a better batter than Kate Anderson (who has been shunned from a losing team). White Ferns didn't play Down in the first game, then she was picked to bat seventh and eighth in the next two games.
Down has batted in the top-five for 20 of her 26 ODI innings. The third ODI was her first time batting eighth in ODIs and she finished as one of nine White Ferns batters who averaged less than 15 in this series. Down's selection is insulting to all the wahine batters in domestic cricket and even then, White Ferns played Down in a strange role for a team that didn't score many runs.
Selections have long plagued this team and such a diabolical issue is now compounded with a lack of player development in the White Ferns. Young players did nothing in this series, with Izzy Gaze falling backwards after flashing her ability earlier this year, Fran Jonas is barely putting up a case for 1st 11 selection these days, Georgia Plimmer struggled in her role as opener, while Molly Penfold and Eden Carson are not making much wicket-taking progress.
Their mahi in this series is in the series stats above. Here are the ODI career stats for these young players...
Georgia Plimmer: 11.6avg/60sr (bat)
Izzy Gaze: 13avg/69.5sr (bat)
Fran Jonas: 45.5avg/4.6rpo (ball)
Molly Penfold: 59.8avg/5.1rpo (ball)
Eden Carson: 48.8avg/5.2rpo (ball)
White Ferns clearly have favourites and they have given these players ample opportunities to step up. Let's brush aside the fact that these players haven't dominated HBJ Shield cricket consistently and (crazy I know) trust in White Ferns talent identification selections; these players have not improved in the White Ferns environment.
Suzie Bates, Maddy Green and the bowling Amelia Kerr also have a few issues. Here's their mahi in the six ODIs this year...
Suzie Bates: 129 runs @ 21avg/69sr
Maddy Green: 91 runs @ 18avg/53sr
Amelia Kerr: 6w @ 38avg/4.9rpo
Green had her best year of ODI batting in 2023 (48avg/84sr) which was her first year since debuting in 2014 in which she has averaged 40+. Bates has two years averaging 40+ in ODIs and two years averaging less than 22 in her last four years. A-Kerr started her ODI career by averaging less than 30 in four consecutive years, now she is in her fourth consecutive year averaging over 37 with the ball.
Coach Ben Sawyer has done nothing to improve White Ferns after the lows of the Bob Carter era. Sawyer has overseen players getting worse as well as a variety of selection issues, mixed in with a complete disregard for women's domestic cricket in Aotearoa. Perhaps this should have happened earlier for the Niche Cache's White Ferns coverage, but the time has now come to put captain Devine in this bracket as well.
White Ferns have slipped backwards under Devine's captaincy. This started with eight consecutive ODI losses early in 2020 which included 0-3 sweeps to South Africa and Australia in Aotearoa. Devine then steered White Ferns through a horrible ODI World Cup in which they had losses to West Indies, Australia, South Africa and England. Last year White Ferns had ODI series losses in Sri Lanka and South Africa before losing three of their four home series (ODI/T20I) in Aotearoa last summer.
With Devine as skipper, White Ferns are 16-25 in ODIs. The team struggles to score enough runs, take enough wickets and develop players. Most notably though, the New Zealand women's cricket team has all sorts of bad vibes under skipper Devine. They find ways to lose games and throughout the last few years, players seem to thrive outside the White Ferns environment. If folks hadn't noticed that before, a 0-3 sweep and the manner of these losses should be a wake up call.
The good news for White Ferns is that no one seems to care. NZC don't care because they can't even bother to cover the games themselves and mainstream media only do positive White Ferns yarns. No one cared when White Ferns lost three of four series on free-to-air telly last summer, so obviously no one cares when these games are being played in England during winter.
Now White Ferns have five T20Is against England. White Ferns are 7-10 in T20Is since the start of 2023 and last summer they went 2-6 in T20Is, losing home series to Pakistan and England. Lea Tahuhu and Leigh Kasperek enter the mix, although Kasperek probably won't play much. Maybe Greig will get a game or two.
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