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England A has taken a three-nil series victories in the T20 matches against New Zealand A at Sir John Davies Oval in Queenstown.
The home side struggled right throughout the series as they were regularly on the backfoot against a very dominant England side, but they especially struggled in the bowling department.
In the first match, England posted 155/7 from their 20 overs with Gemma Adams’ 65* from 38 balls and Maddy Villiers' 33 at the top of the order helping propel their side out of struggle.
New Zealand had bowled well at the top with England A falling to 63/5 at the fall of Seren Smale’s wicket. However, Adams and Rhianna Southby put on a 59-run stand before Ryana MacDonald-Gay and Adams got England close to the 150-run mark.
Spinner Sarah Asmussen and opening bowler Claudia Green were the ones who took some tap conceding wicketless bowling performances of 0/42 and 0/37 respectively.
The New Zealand A batters struggled with Georgia Plimmer’s 34 from 29 at number three being the real highlight, apart from a late 20* from Polly Inglis. MacDonald-Gay showed some performance with the ball taking 2/17 from her four overs as England A took a 30-run win.
Kate Anderson was the real standout with the bat in the second T20 with her 63* at the top of the order allowing Aotearoa A to get to 130 from their 20 overs.
A lacklustre performance from the rest of the Kiwi batters never allowed Anderson to push on with Mikaela Greig making 24 from 26 being the only other player to score above 13.
The tourists had no difficulty in chasing the target down with Grace Scrivens (57*) and Freya Kemp (48*) putting in the mahi for their side as England A chased down the total in just 15.1 overs.
Bree Illing took some tap going for 47 runs from her four overs, whilst Leigh Kasperek (1/26) and Hayley Jensen (1/18) were the wicket takers.
In the third T20, there was once again another going at over 40 runs. This time it was Kasperek who went for 47 from her four overs.
Green and Jensen managed to bowl well as they both took two wickets, but Kemp performed well with the bat for the visitors again as she registered 60 from just 31 balls.
This time around, the majority of the New Zealanders could get started in pursuit of 158 for victory.
Auckland's Prue Catton and Saachi Shahri showed promise at number two and three with their contributions of 26 and 28 but once again could not quite push on and make a big score, like an English batter did each game.
Caitlin Blakely, on NZ A debut, had a nice go at number five with her 24 giving the Kiwi A girls a bit of hope. However, when she was out with still 32 required from the last 13 balls, the task looked a lot tricker.
Kasperek hit a quick 24* from 17, but it wasn’t quite enough as New Zealand only managed 144, with England taking a 13-run win.
As the stats show below, the majority of the players performed well in one, or maybe two games but couldn’t quite push on to perform superbly across the series.
Stats for the NZ A side:
Best NZ A batters:
Kate Anderson: 65 runs @32.50 avg. Best 63*
Saachi Shahri: 50 runs @16.67 avg. Best 26
Georgia Plimmer: 46 runs @23.00 avg. Best 34
Leigh Kasperek: 40 runs @40.00 avg. Best 24*
Prue Catton: 34 runs @17.00 avg. Best 28
Best NZ A bowlers:
Hayley Jensen: 6 wickets @11.50 avg. Best 3/27
Molly Penfold: 4 wickets @17.25 avg. Best 3/22
Leigh Kasperek: 2 wickets @49.00 avg. Best 1/25
Claudia Green: 2 wickets @33.50 avg. Best 2/30
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