Bates leads dominant New Zealand to 93-run victory
The ICC Women’s World Twenty20 Group A game between New Zealand Women and Ireland Women at the PCA IS Bindra Stadium in Mohali on Friday (March 18) was one-way traffic, with New Zealandbrutal in its 93-run win, the inexperience of Ireland showing through.
The schoolkids in the stands hardly complained about the difference in the standards as Suzie Bates and Sophie Devine entertained them with some big hits. Their 104-run partnership for the second wicket took the White Ferns to 177 for 3, and then the spinners restricted Ireland to 84 for 5.
Rachel Priest, who had batted well in the seven-wicket win in the opening game against Sri Lanka Women, set the tone with three fours off overpitched deliveries in the first over. But her luck ran out in the second over when she swept a full delivery from Amy Kenealy only to see Clare Shillington take a smart diving catch near the square-leg umpire.
Realising that the conditions hardly offered any assistance to the bowlers, Isobel Joyce, the Ireland captain, took out the slip very early in the innings and deployed a fielder at sweeper cover to control the run flow. But the field placements were hardly a factor for Bates and Devine, who used their power to good effect in hitting eight fours and two sixes during their 75-ball partnership.
They played out a total of 27 dot balls and capitalised on the remaining 48 deliveries to score their runs at a strike rate of 216.66. Their experience came to the fore as they toyed with the gaps in the field.
The first milestone in the game came in the penultimate ball of the sixth over when Bates pulled a short delivery from Kenealy to the square-leg fence to become the first White Ferns player with 2,000 T20 International runs. By the time she was dismissed in the 19th over for a 60-ball 82 after slog-sweeping two consecutive sixes off Kim Garth, Bates had taken her tally to 2,063 and jumped to the second position in the list behind Charlotte Edwards’s aggregate of 2463.
Ireland got a rare chance to smile when Isobel saw Devine step out and bowled out of her reach to have her stumped for a 34-ball 47. The second-wicket pair fell 15 short of crossing the highest-ever stand for the wickets in T20I history, set by Bates and Amiee Watkins back in 2009.
Bates continued the assault in company of Sarah McGlashan, and the interest shifted towards the skipper’s potential maiden T20I century. It was not to be as she fell to Garth against the run of play in the last ball of the 19thover. McGlashan and Amy Satterthwaite took ten runs in the final over to help New Zealand post its fourth-highest T20I total.
After the batters, it was the turn of the New Zealand bowlers to live up to their side of the bargain as the team tried to boost its net run-rate.
Cecilia Joyce was stumped off Morna Nielsen in the third over, and wickets fell at regular intervals after that.
Isobel’s knock of 28 was one of the rare positives for Ireland, before she played across the line against Devine to be bowled in the 17th over.
Devine had eight more balls after that to pick up another wicket and join Stafanie Taylor in a rare club of cricketers with 1,000 runs and 50 victims in T20Is. The record did not come through, but she was hardly complaining about it.
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