White Ferns ‘excited’ by must-win match
Melie Kerr didn’t want to touch the Women’s Cricket World Cup trophy during a photo shoot on Eden Park’s roof on Friday.
Because it’s bad luck if you haven’t actually won it.
She was with Kate Cross of defending champions England, Darcie Brown of Australia and Mithali Raj of India, who all had matches there this week.
First it was Australia beating India yesterday under lights, then New Zealand v England today.
If the White Ferns don’t get up, after losses to Australia and South Africa in the past week, they’ll be out of the semifinal running.
And Kerr will have to wait until 2025, at the earliest, to try to get her hands on the game’s most coveted piece of silverware.
On the eve of the match, the young allrounder didn’t appear troubled by the pressure of playing in a must-win game. ‘‘I guess every game you play, you go out there and your goal is to win, so that will be the same again,’’ Kerr said.
‘‘I think it’s about not getting too focused on the result.
‘‘Once we are on the field, it’s controlling what we control and just performing and playing our roles well, and we know that if we can do that, then we’ll put the team in a good place.
‘‘It’s exciting though. It essentially is like a quarter final, so we’re looking forward to it.’’
The White Ferns need to beat Pakistan if they win today, and for one of India or the West Indies to finish with fewer than eight points, or to finish with eight but have an inferior net run rate.
Five years ago, at the last oneday international World Cup in England, New Zealand went into their last match against India knowing a win would put them in the semifinals at their rivals’ expense.
It’s not quite the same situation this time, given there’s still a week to go before the end of the round-robin, but they’ll be desperate to put in a better showing than they did then, when they were rolled for 79 in a 186-run loss.
The White Ferns have found themselves in this position at a World Cup on home soil, because they failed to seize the moment against the West Indies and South Africa – two matches that could have been narrow wins but instead became narrow losses. England also know the pain of being beaten by fine margins, losing to Australia, the West Indies and South Africa before getting on the board with a win over India, who lost to the White Ferns a week earlier.
Both teams know they have a win in them, and they will be familiar with each other, having played a five-match series in England in September, which the hosts won 4-1.
That scoreline didn’t reflect the fact that four of the five matches were in the balance until well into the second innings, with the final one the only blowout.
Kerr didn’t feature in that series, but she has been in fine form since returning to the fold against India this summer. She hasn’t hit the heights she did with the bat in that series in the World Cup, with a 50 in the win over India her highest score, but she has still been the team’s secondhighest run scorer, behind captain Sophie Devine.
In their loss to South Africa on Thursday, her wickets brought the White Ferns back into the game.
Meg Lanning (97) guided unbeaten Australia to 280-4 to beat India’s 277-7 with three balls left in a record chase at Eden Park last night in the World Cup.