White Ferns Stumble In ODI Series Loss vs Sri Lanka
After splitting the first two ODIs in Sri Lanka, the White Ferns were again bullied by Chamari Athapaththu in the decider to give the hosts an ODI series victory. Aotearoa was beaten by a hefty margin in the opening game with Athapaththu smacking 108* @ 130sr for a 9-wicket win. A ray of winter sunshine then poked through for the second game as the kiwis tapped into their powerful mahi for a 116-run win.
Amelia Kerr hit 108 runs @ 102sr and Sophie Devine hit 137 runs @ 113sr in the second game, with Lea Tahuhu snaring 4w @ 3.8rpo. Heading into this series, the preview highlighted the funk of Sri Lankan conditions and it looked as though White Ferns had made winning adjustments. Unfortunately this three-game pocket is aligned with greater White Ferns themes as nothing really changed behind the veil of illusion.
In a rain-impacted third ODI, White Ferns scored 127/2 in 31 overs with Suzie Bates hitting 63* and Devine settled on 38*. Sri Lanka had to chase 196 in 29 overs and Athapaththu dragged her team to victory, whacking 140* @ 175sr and while White Ferns operated at 4rpo, Athapaththu's knock had Sri Lanka scoring at 7.3rpo.
Tahuhu was the only White Ferns bowler who conceded less than 5rpo with 1w @ 4.8rpo, while Devine took the other wicket for the Ferns (1w @ 6.4rpo). This fits nicely into the series stats as Tahuhu finished with 5w @ 17.2avg/4.7rpo and she was the only kiwi bowler to concede less than 5.1rpo.
White Ferns are now 12-23 in ODIs since the start of 2020. Coach Ben Sawyer took over from the Bob era and while chatting big yarns, Sawyer has now overseen a T20 World Cup performance that looked exactly the same as the ODI World Cup a year prior. Add to that an ODI series defeat in Sri Lanka, all of which features the same weird selections and a lack of contributions outside the classy core.
Rolling with Bernadine Bezuidenhout as opening batter and wicket-keeper resulted in 42 runs @ 14avg/76sr. Keep in mind that Izzy Gaze was in the team a year ago, then she was brushed aside for Jess McFadyen who barely got an opportunity before Bezuidenhout was promoted for the T20WC.
Georgia Plimmer batted twice and scored 33 runs @ 33avg/91sr. While Plimmer hasn't offered consistent contributions, she did flex her punchy strokes in the first ODI and deserves a spot alongside the top-five batters. Plimmer has flashed her ability a few times for White Ferns, while Brooke Halliday has done little to command steady selection with 3 runs @ 3avg/42sr in this series.
Halliday started her career with scores of 50 and 60 in ODIs vs England, also hitting 32 against Australia in her fourth game. Since then, she hasn't passed 30 runs in 17 innings and is averaging 13 in 12 games since the start of 2022. Halliday's selection is likely thanks to her being a lefty and the same may apply to Fran Jonas who is suffering from the same lack of mahi as Halliday.
Jonas played all three games and took 1w @ 86avg/6.29rpo. This comes after the T20WC in which Jonas took 1w @ 53avg/7.57rpo and she has not taken more than 1w in her last nine innings, with just 3w in this period. Jonas now has an ODI record of 49.11avg/4.87rpo and her lefty-spin is a point of difference, but she hasn't earned selection via consistent wicket-taking in this format.
Molly Penfold only played the third ODI but she is also yet to earn White Ferns opportunities through wickets. Halliday and Jonas are lefties, while Penfold has clear athletic traits that boost her case for selection ... without wickets. Penfold went for 9.6rpo off her 3ov in the third game and she now has an ODI record of 77avg/4.9rpo. Penfold has 3w in her last eight innings and averages 35.9 in List-A cricket.
Meanwhile, Aotearoa's best spinner ever Leigh Kasperek couldn't get a game in Sri Lanka. Hannah Rowe was solid in the first two games with lower-order slugging (12 runs @ 150sr) and the second best economy rate of White Ferns bowlers (1w @ 41avg/5.12rpo), before making way for Penfold. A sneaky issue for White Ferns is Kerr's bowling and while this can be absorbed in a strong bowling unit, this is alarming when Kerr operates in a weaker unit.
Kerr took 1w @ 114avg/5.47rpo in Sri Lanka and her ODI bowling is grooving in the wrong direction...
2016: 6w @ 20avg/3.54rpo
2017: 20w @ 21.6avg/4.13rpo
2018: 13w @ 19.3avg/4.18rpo
2019: 8w @ 29.87avg/5.15rpo
2020: 7w @ 33.85avg/4.74rpo
2021: 6w @ 40.83avg/5.21rpo
2022: 17w @ 39.29avg/4.42rpo
2023: 1w @ 114avg/5.47rpo
Kerr is a world-class batter though and her century in the second game takes her to 40.23avg/86.5sr in ODI cricket. Along with Kerr, Devine and Bates there is the continued rise of Maddy Green (43 runs @ 43avg/107.5sr) who is in her best two-year pocket of ODI batting since her debut in 2014. Add Tahuhu's seam and White Ferns have a capable core who should be winning far more ODIs than they are.
The major issue in the Bob era was the pressure on these players to perform because no one else would. There are slithers of development in Plimmer and Eden Carson, however under coach Sawyer their lack of team-wide contributions still plagues White Ferns cricket. The same vibe of Aotearoa's best female cricketers not playing for White Ferns still applies here as well with players selected on potential rather than production.
White Ferns are a better in T20I cricket than ODIs. The T20I series starts on Saturday and based on how the kiwis were dispatched in the ODI leg, this will be a crucial phase of White Ferns cricket. Then again, many of the current issues stretch back to 2019 and nothing has really changed since those woes.
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