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It’s safe to say New Zealand dominated their group in the U19 Women’s T20 World Cup, winning all their three games versus Indonesia, Ireland and West Indies. They looked to be favourites for the trophy coming into the tournament, with emphasis around their 3 internationally capped players and the experience the majority of the side has in the domestic tournaments.
I thought it would be worth going back over each of their group stage games to summarise their campaign so far, as well as what they’ll need to work on in the Super Sixes to get into the Semis.
Game One:
Indonesia U19s — 74/7 after 20. Desi Wulandari 16* (35), Tash Wakelin 3–14 (4), Anna Browning 2–12 (4). New Zealand U19s — 77/0 after 9.3. Anna Browning 38* (36), Antonia Hamilton 26* (21).
New Zealand U19s won by 10 wickets.
It was a straightforward game for the Kiwis. A wicket on the first ball of Ni Ariani off Browning set the tone for the innings ahead. The Indonesians broke free when facing the pace of Kotkamp and Knight to go from 3/1 from 2 to 26/1 after 5. Kadek Kurniartini (13 off 18) posed a real threat during the power play finding two 4s in the field before she dished a delivery from Wakelin to Loggenberg at mid off.
From then on it was downhill for the batting side, Wakelin then removing 2 more players from the equation — Dewi with a carbon copy dismissal to Kurniartini, and Ulansari ran out by Plimmer stopping the four for Wakelin to convert into a runout. Desi Wulandari top scored for Indonesia with 16* off 36, with the opposition hanging on for 74 runs for 7 wickets.
Tash Wakelin was the pick of the bowlers. Taking 3 wickets including Dewi and Kurniartini, as well as enforcing the run of Ulansari. Anna Browning was impressive, striking first ball as well as clinching another wicket to end her 4 overs with 2–14.
Anna Browning would also impress with the bat up top alongside Antonia Hamilton, the two sticking around until the end to see their side take a dominant 10 wicket win. Browning had the shots and boundaries behind her, an impressive five 4s and a 6 with Hamilton at the other end with swift ones and twos saw the game end before the halfway mark.
Game Two:
Ireland U19s — 74 ao after 18.1 overs. Zara Craig 20 (28), Tash Codyre 3–6 (3), Tash Wakelin 2–12 (3). New Zealand U19s — 75/1 after 6.5 overs. Anna Browning 29 (14), Georgia Plimmer 17* (10), Georgina Dempsey 1–27 (3).
New Zealand U19s won by 9 wickets.
Another game in which NZ bowled first, Ireland faced a tough Tash attack via Codyre and Wakelin to restrict them to 74 all out. Zara Craig played a key role in the innings, a top scoring 20 off 28 and only one of two Irish batters to break into the double figures. She was also a big role in 3 of the Irish camp’s only double figured partnerships too toward the middle and back end of the game to revive a poor start of 18/4 — just inside the powerplay alone.
Abbi Harrison also saw the bulk of the runs for the team in green, scoring a quick fire 14 off 15, ultimately to be defeated by the pace of Olivia Anderson.
It was a tight and tidy game once more of the Kiwi bowlers, Tash Wakelin once more standing out with her off spin claiming 2–12 with her impact coming towards the end of the innings. Tash Codyre put in one of her best peformances to date, a economical 3–6 saw her make the most damage inside of the powerplay. Rebecca Gough and Georgina Dempsey couldn’t get going at the hands of Codyre, both making a combined score of 7 (18).
Once again it seemed another easy task for Anna Browning and Antonia Hamilton, both seeing the side home versus Indonesia. After a speedy start from the Auckland allrounder, finding gaps all over the Ireland field with five 4s and a 6 (coincidentally the same as the previous game), she was dismissed after taking 29 runs in 14 runs from the bowling attack by Dempsey — the only wicket taker of the New Zealand innings.
The wicket introduced Georgia Plimmer to the crease, White Ferns international, though there wasnt much to do as Hamilton (18 off 17) and Browning had pulled up 46 runs for the team chasing 75. Considering the start they’d had in the powerplay, their final over was tame. 6 runs including 2 wides saw the end of the match with New Zealand once again on the winning side in just 6.5 overs.
Game Three:
West Indies U19s — 68 ao after 19.2 overs. Earnisha Fontaine 11* (17), Kate Chandler 3–8 (4), Abigail Hotton 2–10 (4). New Zealand U19s — 72/0 after 7.2 overs. Georgia Plimmer 41* (22), Anna Browning 28* (22).
New Zealand U19s won by 10 wickets.
Many players from this New Zealand side had faced this West Indies U19 unit in India, as the New Zealand Development XI took on the U19s with great success with two wins from two. It looked a similar story once more as the NZ spinners looked to bowl out the opposition to one of the lowest totals they’d come up against so far in the U19 World Cup.
The powerplay was once again won by the bowlers, Anna Browning had been threatening one for a while and got the first of the game in a wicket maiden, Olivia Anderson then followed with two wickets in her second over. Naijanni Cumberbatch out on her first ball while Zaida James stuck around but only with 5 runs. Anderson’s over wasn’t as quick as her bowling though, 12 balls had to be bowled due to the excessive wides.
Chandler (3–8) and Hotton (2–10) were then introduced into the attack, with the pair finishing off with the best figures of the bowlers with the West Indies going from 26/3 to 63/9 in 11 overs once the two had finished. Earnisha Fontaine coming it at 10 put in a hard fight with 11 from 17 in a desperate bid to add to her team’s total, but they were bowled out for 68.
Another 10 wicket win followed for New Zealand opting for a Browning-Plimmer opening partnership in Hamilton’s absence. Browning carried on with her conservative approach, but Plimmer went all in at the other end. A fine innings of 41 off 22, seven 4s, with back-to-back boundaries in the final over (the 8th) to see the end of the game.
One more hard fought win for the New Zealand camp, who carry great momentum from the group stages into the Super Sixes and later on, the semis.
Going forward:
New Zealand will need to improve despite their dominance in the groups — that’s a given. While they can take pride in their top two being reliable, an issue they face is that no one outside the top three has batted for NZ so far.
They’ve bowled first every time so the Ferns have never needed to rely on the rest of their order to put up a competitive total; they’ve not had to chase one either. It’s a worrying thought going into the Super 6’s, with them so accustomed to bowling first and the batters not getting game time, it’s an extreme unknown for the side in a crucial stage in the tournament.
A fair criticism of the Ferns so far is that the competition they’ve faced has been unthreatening, hence the two 10 wicket & one 9 wicket wins. The team will need to prepare themselves for the assault they’ll face from Rwanda and Pakistan in the Super Sixes; teams they should not take lightly.
Rwanda has a strong bowling force with key players like Henriette & Gisele Ishwime and batter Cynthia Tuyizere amongst the XI. Pakistan top order batters Eyman Fatima and Syeda Aroob Shah are bound to trouble the Kiwi bowlers too, so they’ll really need to restrict the wides.
Their bowling has been key for them so far, managing 27 wickets from 3 games, but the extras total has more often than not beaten the batters. In the Indonesia game, there were 13.
In the Ireland game, there were 6 — a step up from the previous fixture — though versus the West Indies they gave away 25, beating the highest scoring batter by 14 runs. Sorting out the dragged-down balls, the outswingers going too wide and keeping in the crease should restrict their opponents to a smaller total.
One thing the Kiwis wont have too much to work on is their fielding. They have the most number of run outs in Group C (5) as well as the Ferns: Anderson, Plimmer, Loggenberg and Sharp — occupying the top 4 fielder catches of the group. Teams will have to watch out for the quick arms and accurate throws to the stumps from this unit.
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