Snapping a 13-game losing streak against Australia in all formats is lovely and Aotearoa's White Ferns showed promising signs in winning the third T20I in Brisbane, yet losing the series 2-1 extends the trend of not quite dipping into their full potential. Australia won the first two games rather easily before the kiwis grabbed a much needed win and the wider trend of a White Ferns plateau unfortunately continues to crawl along.

Part of that trend is the excellence of the White Ferns best players. The three leading run-scorers in this series for Aotearoa were Amy Satterthwaite, Sophie Devine and Suzie Bates. Satterthwaite cruised back into international duties with scores of 9, 30 and 30 to lead all kiwi run-scorers at a strike-rate of 111.29.

Despite missing over a year of cricket mainly due to giving birth to her and Lea Tahuhu's child, Satterthwaite picked up exactly where she left international cricket in more ways than one; Satterwhaite had scores of 92, 37 and 49 in her last international outing prior to this series and that was an ODI series vs Australia, in Australia. That's six games of international cricket in 17 months and all six were against Australia, with four 30+ scores across two formats.

The whole package here with Satterthwaite is amazing and it gets even better when the mum-mum duo of Satterthwaite and Tahuhu combined to dominate with bat and ball. Tahuhu was the second best White Ferns bowler, taking 4w @ 19.75avg/7.18rpo and there is scope that this may be the craziest kiwi sports yarn of 2020. Tahuhu took a wicket in all three games and Satterthwaite had to scores of 30, against the best team in the world, after giving birth in the year of the pando.

Such top-end matters are always reasonably funky for the White Ferns and while Devine and Bates were among the best batswomen for the Ferns in this series, Devine had a strike-rate of 96.92 and Bates scored at 78.37sr. Devine usually operates at 125.42sr and Bates' strike-rate is 110.62, which points to an area of improvement and Australia did a nice job of keeping a lid on the White Ferns batting tempo.

At this stage, Amelia Kerr has to be viewed alongside Satterthwaite, Devine, Bates and Tahuhu as the White Ferns' world-class players. Of all players who scored 20+ runs in this series, Kerr had the highest strike-rate of all the kiwis and her strike-rate of 130.76 wasn't too far off the leading run-scorer for the series Ash Gardner's 145.16sr. To go with her batting quality, Kerr finished with 3w @ 24avg/6.54rpo with no wickets in the first game followed by 1w and 2w.

Stretching back to the T20 World Cup, Kerr has taken 1+ wickets in all but one of seven T20I games and is slowly adding a finisher aspect to her batting against quality opposition. There is no point in viewing Kerr as a rising star of women's cricket as she is already a star and while any kiwi sports team culture revolves around knowing your role and mana, from the outside in assessing this White Ferns group, Kerr is as influential as the leaders of this team.

Devine didn't blast Australia away with the bat, she did show why her T20I career bowling average is 17.07 though. Devine was the leading bowler for Aotearoa with 4w @ 16.50aavg/6.60rpo and between Devine, Tahuhu and Kerr, these three accounted for 11 of the 15 wickets taken by White Ferns bowlers.

That points to why the White Ferns struggle to win games against high quality opposition as there continues to be a heavy reliance on the best players and not much happening elsewhere. Maddy Green was promoted to open the innings in all three games and that resulted in an average of 7.33 with a strike-rate of 66.66. Not the ideal way to spark an innings and things get a bit awkward venturing deeper as Green has a T20I career average of 11.66 after 51 games.

Awkward because I don't want to beat this up, I'm just wondering how many international cricket teams carry a batswoman/batsman who averages 11.66. This flows into a weird batting line up move that saw Green open and another young batting talent Lauren Down placed down the order with veteran Katie Perkins. Down batted #8 and Perkins batted #9 in the first game as the Ferns have an abundance of all-rounders to make this possible and Down then moved up to #6 while Perkins stayed and #9 in the second game, before Down and Rosemary Mair made way for Holly Huddleston and Jess Kerr in the final game.

Guess who also averages exactly 11.66 in T20I cricket? Down, after just four games though and yet things don't get better in ODI cricket for Down where she averages 7.50 after 11 games (Green averages 18.87 in ODIs after 29 games).

There is a similar vibe with the ball as Rosemary Mair took 1w @ 41avg/5.34rpo and Hayley Jensen took 1w @ 46avg/7.66rpo. With the ball, there is at least more depth in the squad and a greater desire/need to rotate the bowlers which in theory should boost the competitive vibes as Mair, Jensen, Holly Huddleston and Jess Kerr are all competing for game time. These seamers aren't just competing with straight up seamer either as they're up against the plethora of all-rounders and when Leigh Kasperek and Anna Peterson are available, they compete for bowling spots with the plethora of spinners.

This should lead to a natural sorting process in which the best bowlers rise to the top, thus making the White Ferns more competitive against Australia. The same group will re-up for the ODI series and to go with Devine, Tahuhu and Amelia Kerr, the Ferns need a few more bowlers to have a greater impact. Here, Aotearoa's depth is on show as two frontline spinners are unavailable and there is still competition for overs within this squad as seamer Hannah Rowe, all-rounder Jess Watkin and leggy Deanna Doughty are also in the squad.

In the batting department, things are very strange. Both Green and Down have been graced with plenty of faith in their talents or potential and their consistent selection points to a lack of batting depth in Aotearoa. I've consistently highlighted that Katie Gurrey is probably the best batting prospect in Aotearoa and despite better performances in the Super Smash than many of the players in this White Ferns squad, the best Gurrey can get is a development contract.

Gurrey's not in this squad, yet Jess Watkin and Natalie Dodd are and along with Gurrey they finished in the top-10 for Super Smash runs last summer with all the White Ferns taking part. Gurrey, Watkin and Dodd also finished in the top-10 for One-Day runs last summer and while I'm unsure of how NZC is preparing players to step up from domestic cricket to international cricket, I'm confident that Aotearoa has enough batting depth to move forward.

Snapping a losing streak is nice and all, yet I'm looking at a White Ferns team and a women's cricket landscape in Aotearoa that probably should be better. The best White Ferns players always make them competitive and the lack on contributions from the rest of the team is what holds Aotearoa back from beating the best nations regularly and winning series.

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Peace and love.