2026 South Africa Women's Tour Of New Zealand: ODI Series Win For White Ferns
The opening stanza of the Melie Kerr era for White Ferns continues to dazzle with New Zealand adding an ODI series win vs South Africa to their 4-1 T20I series win. That rounds out to a 6-2 record across the tour and while there is a sharp focus on T20Is ahead of the T20 World Cup, the ODI series offered more insight into the depth and vibrant talent for White Ferns moving forward.
A few players opted out of ODIs after the last World Cup and it had no impact on White Ferns performances under skipper A-Kerr. This was most evident in the trio of Nensi Patel, Kayley Knight and Flora Devonshire who along with Izzy Sharp batting in the middle/lower order, gives White Ferns plenty of batting oomph throughout their line up while also providing funky bowling options.
Patel only played one game in this series but her knock of 12 runs @ 200sr reflects her status as one of Northern Districts' best batters. Devonshire also played one game and she scored 9 runs @ 150sr down the order. Both bowled overs of spin against South Africa and while Suzie Bates conceded 6.9rpo in this ODI series, Patel (4.4rpo) and Devonshire (5rpo) were well below that mark.
Sharp continues her development and while she didn't put up a big score, she flashed her power as one of three White Ferns to hit a six in the series. Sharp, Patel and Devonshire are also excellent fielders and this is a key aspect of the Melie Kerr era as White Ferns stopped plenty of runs in the field with players like Georgia Plimmer and Brooke Halliday excelling as out-fielders.
Knight will develop into an all-rounder as she settles into the international flow. She has shown her batting ability in domestic cricket and having her batting 10 or 11, behind the Sharp, Patel, Devonshire and Jess Kerr group is an example of the all-round talent available to White Ferns.
Knight also hovered around 115km/h with the ball and held that speed bowling into the wind at the Basin Reserve. This is another impressive pocket of White Ferns talent and depth as they now have at least four seamers who can consistently hit the 115km/h mark, which is similar to the 140km/h mark for men (Blackcaps have more lads hitting that mark than ever as well).
Knight, Rosemary Mair and Bree Illing all gave 115km/h a nudge vs South Africa. Molly Penfold seems out of favour right now and she may be the fastest of them all, giving White Ferns more fast bowlers than they have had for the last decade. This means that the Melie Kerr era coincides with multiple spinning all-rounders who can score quickly, an excellent cluster of fast bowlers, elite fielding and a scoring rate that made monster totals look easy mahi.
Three of the four batters who scored 100+ runs vs South Africa had strike-rates over 100. That's usually where J-Kerr shines and she was awesome in this regard with 44 runs @ 176sr, along with the emerging players like Sharp, Patel, Devonshire and Knight who are all capable of scoring quick runs down the order.
Green and A-Kerr hit centuries in this series, giving them 200+ runs with strike-rates between 103-108. These two didn't need to whack boundaries either, instead carving them between fielders with plenty of craft. Both can score all around the park and that was one of the amazing things about A-Kerr's epic knock of 179* as she hit boundaries in the space from point all the way around to square leg.
Izzy Gaze is better having a whack and she scored 112 runs @ 112sr in her glorious fashion. Gaze is now one of the best White Ferns batters in both formats, while Green and Brooke Halliday have been better than A-Kerr in ODIs over the past year. Green has 644 runs @ 101sr in 13 innings since the start of 2025 as an example of her dominance.
Halliday joins Green as the only White Ferns with 500+ runs since the start of 2025 and while her strike-rates are lower, Halliday has hit the most sixes of the current players in this period. Halliday is at her best when she has time to build an innings and this is what makes her T20I status intriguing ahead of the T20WC, but her mahi in ODIs is fabulous.
Most notably, White Ferns don't rely on one player to drag them to victory. They have an incredible leader who is their best player and will finish her career with the most runs and wickets for New Zealand in both formats, but White Ferns won the ODI series with Green also hitting an awesome century and four batters having 50+ scores.
Stretch it out further and seven batters scored 30+ runs, along with chip ins from players like Patel down the order. Five bowlers took 3+ wickets for Aotearoa in this series and every player who bowled more than three overs took a wicket. Mair (7w @ 26avg) led White Ferns for wickets and along with A-Kerr (4w), three other seamers were among the best bowlers for Aotearoa with Illing, J-Kerr (4w) and Knight (3w) all snaring a few.
J-Kerr, Mair and Illing have all been good in ODIs over the past year. They join A-Kerr as the current White Ferns who have 13+ ODI wickets since the start of 2025 as well as taking 5+ wickets in ODIs this year. All of the bowling stats are inflated by lots of runs being scored in this series which offers a development boost as the bowlers had to counter swift scoring and while most bowlers in the series conceded plenty of runs, the White Ferns bowlers were still able to take wickets under pressure.
White Ferns are 5-3 in ODIs under A-Kerr's captaincy and 8-2 in T20Is. That stretches further back than A-Kerr taking over as the leader of White Ferns and the winning record is matched by her incredible cricketing stuff as captain...
ODIs: 56.1avg/92sr | 13.3avg/4.3rpo
T20Is: 62.3avg/158sr | 13.2avg/5.6rpo
White Ferns are preparing for a T20WC and they won the T20I series with a squad that overlapped with the previous era. This ODI series was more vibrant because of the emerging talent involved and how others like Green, Halliday and Mair played key roles in helping White Ferns win the series. South Africa also won the ODI World Cup last year, so beating them with a fresh squad and such a wide range of contributions is another impressive marker for how White Ferns are tracking.
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