This World Cup has been the most unpredictable event in history of women’s cricket!.
New Zealand the winning team had 10 straight loss coming into this WC. They had lost to England at home earlier this year in March, then again losing 0-5 t o them in England in June. Then losing 0-3 last month in Australia.
New Zealand came to this WC after 10 straight losses. Their first win after 10 defeats was against India, one of the favorites in this WC. They won by 59 runs. This surely must have given them confidence to be in the race!.
They lost their second game very poorly to Australia, the defending champions, which dented their NRR badly!. Then defeating two Asian teams by huge margin helped them with NRR and also understand the condition. The wins against these teams must have helped with their bowling tactics.
Bowling tactics
Their bowling was their hallmark in this WC . It was apparent that pitches in UAE will help slow bowlers, and scoring big totals wont be easy for teams. New Zealand knew their spinners dont have the same experience like their Asian bowlers, hence they employed shorter spells in last 2 phases of their innings mixed them with spin/seam.
Against their bowling teams regularly collapsed. Post 10th over their innings didn’t go anywhere. It was flurry of wickets.
Overall they had the maximum(86) bowling changes (new spells) in this tournament.
Making constant bowling changes reaped them with rewards, as they grabbed 32 wickets (total wickets 50) in first over of new spell!.
From 11-20th over New Zealand bowlers picked 32 wickets with help of 40 bowling changes. Amelia Kerr was their key weapon, picking 12 wickets in same phase!. She was well supported by Rosemary Mair who picked 7 wkts in same phase. Below gfx table displays bowler’s performance in each phase.
The middle order struggled to post decent partnerships against NZ bowling despite the great start from their top order.
Interestingly both Australia and South Africa struggled to keep their momentum from solid opening stand.
Here is partnerships list
The Finals
The finals against South Africa was a perfect match for New Zealand. Unlike semis v/s West Indies their fielding was on the mark, along with their bowling. This has to do with the way they batted first up!. Their intention was very clear when they were put into bat, i.e take the attack to SA bowlers.
In this tournament, no batsman had the courage to charge down the wicket to a new-ball bowler but NZ openers Kathie Bates and Georgia Plimmer did that in the finals. The very second ball of their innings, Plimmer went down the wicket Marizanee Kapp, although she missed the ball, but the intention was very clear!.
Their batting was lot of similar to their first match v India, where they looked for runs and rotated strike regularly. This being a low scoring series, it was obvious runs were not easy to score in all phases. Interestingly before the finals South African bowlers were doing great with the ball, especially in power play in where they conceded just 4.90 RPO. The best for any team!. Interestingly NZ scored 7.00 and lost only 1 wkt to get their momentum going.
New Zealand Top Batsmen - A comparison (Finals v overall )
