2022 Women's World Cup: Peak White Ferns Woes
World Cups in Aotearoa are glorious and those tapped in to the joys of life were again rewarded with another fabulous cricketing encounter between Aotearoa and England at Eden Park. Both teams were desperate to win and for the third game in a row, kiwi cricket fans showed up to enjoy wahine cricket on the biggest stage. Unfortunately for the White Ferns, those in attendance and kiwi cricket fans chillin' at home; White Ferns don't win big games, in fact they lose most games.
One must bask in the positive vibes here as Aotearoa did show tremendous mana against England. Sophie Devine suffered a back spaz just as her innings started to flow at a ground where Devine could easily deal solely in sixes. Devine isn't just the skipper, Devine is the player who dragged Aotearoa through their run-chase against West Indies and then led Aotearoa through much of their innings against South Africa. When Devine's fit and firing, Aotearoa has crumbled after her dismissal.
Aotearoa once again crumbled, but their mana was on display. I've noted how Aotearoa has been shell-shocked by changes in momentum and the ripples of Devine's injury could have seen Aotearoa hand England the win. Aotearoa stayed positive, kept their heads high to spot the next opportunity and then Lea Tahuhu went down with a bung hamstring.
England are the only other team as fragile as Aotearoa. After injuries to Devine and Tahuhu, Aotearoa pounced on that fragility to take the contest down to the final wicket. Eden Park has hosted various moments of World Cup magic, I'm still jaded by Luteru Taylor Test bowling magic and maybe this was time for White Ferns magic.
Nope. As of Monday morning, Aotearoa is ranked 6th in this World Cup with Bangladesh and Pakistan the only teams below the kiwis. These are the tiny margins of World Cup sport.
As sad as this is to share, Aotearoa's White Ferns have stunk since Bob Carter took over as coach. Prior to this World Cup, I pondered the similarities between White Ferns hosting a World Cup and Aotearoa Kiwis hosting the Rugby League World Cup in 2017. Here we are with the same nasty flavour loitering as Aotearoa is shuffled into the abyss of their own event.
Riding this White Ferns wave has been a learning exercise for myself. While Aotearoa media did well to share positive yarns, I was deep in my kete outlining various red flags. Red flags laid out over years, not a bad series or two. Red flags deeply embedded in the wider White Ferns mixer as NZC oversaw confusing development contracts and White Ferns decision-makers overlooked the value of domestic cricket, instead believing that the White Ferns environment was more important.
How do I deal with such blatant bad vibes, while trying to balance my own insecurities? Maybe I'm wrong? Maybe my intuition is so far off?
All of this has been recently amplified. Aotearoa dominated India in an ODI series prior to the World Cup and this was reason to hype up Aotearoa's World Cup chances. That series was a glorified warm up series, just as the funky game against Australia had palpable warm up vibes. All of which is fairly similar to Aotearoa being highly competitive at home against England early last year in two warm up games, before being smoked salmon.
There appears to be a vast chasm between perception in reality. The wrap up yarn for the loss to England started with this sentence...
"A strong 12-18 months in the lead up to the 2022 World Cup on their home soil has somehow culminated in New Zealand being the first top side being all but knocked out of the tournament."
Between January 1st 2020 and 31st December 2021, Aotearoa played 17 games with 2 wins and 15 losses.
I am now regurgitating stuff that I have covered in every White Ferns yarn. They got smoked by South Africa in Aotearoa losing all three ODIs back in early 2020. Aotearoa is 2-7 against England in their last nine games. Aotearoa is 0-10 against Australia in their last 10 games. All the wash up from this loss to England has revolved around a lack of runs and this is nothing new…
Since the last World Cup in 2017, Aotearoa has averaged 26.56 runs per wicket.
This drops down to 20.19 runs per wicket in 2020 and 2021. Zimbabwe is the only team worse than Aotearoa during that period.
From the start of 2020 to now, Aotearoa averages 23.12 runs per wicket. Only Pakistan and Zimbabwe are worst than Aotearoa in that period.
No one can be surprised by a lack of White Ferns runs in this World Cup. This has been a staple of them losing the majority of their games and when such poor cricket is laid out for years, no one can be surprised that Aotearoa's home World Cup campaign is now all but over.
In more recent times we have seen the best domestic players ignored for youngsters who have done nothing in domestic cricket. How does that help confidence when the players know that the best players aren't in the squad? Nothing kills the buzz like this White Ferns demise and if this were any other national team, coach Carter would have already been ousted.
Aotearoa has some of the best wahine cricketers in the world. Aotearoa has incredible young talent that has been ignored by NZC talent identification. Aotearoa has hearty, experienced cricketers who love to rip into their opponents and rise to crucial moments. All of them have been let down by woeful decisions above them.
The worst bit of this? Well, the difference between perception and reality is pretty damn baffling. But, the worst bit of this is that no one cared during the White Ferns demise. The Niche Cache has a long list of receipts that you can check documenting this demise, while many other folk celebrated failure and poor decisions.
Don't put this on the players. These wahine are inspirational and many of them have laid the foundations for future excellence. Their positivity in spite of such yucky vibes is admirable. The players don't select squads, the players don't influence development contracts. Players deal with this insanity and do their best given the circumstances. Unfortunately their best hasn't been good enough for at least three years and drastic change is now required.
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Peace and love.