Adaptive cricket in focus for Devine’s New Zealand at Women's T20 World Cup
Captain Sophie Devine opens up on how New Zealand will look to ace the UAE conditions during the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2024.
The searing hot conditions that have historically favoured the spinners in the UAE will be a far call from the cloudy, seam-friendly environs of New Zealand. The White Ferns captain Sophie Devine states that her side is working on ways to adapt to the Asian conditions.
“We have been specific and clear with how we want to play and what we think is going to work in those conditions,” Devine speaks. “We reflected and reviewed how we’d played and what we’d worked on previously and have had a real eye on what the conditions are like.”
Devine put an emphasis on the scoring rates to ensure that New Zealand has the upper hand with the bat while restricting those opportunities for the opposition.
“There’s been a real focus on spin bowling, which I’m sure everyone is going to focus on, but for us it’s about strike rate and scoring shot percentages. With the bat, we’re wanting to be really busy at the crease, we know that the conditions might be tough, so every run is going to be valuable.
“On the flip side, with the ball we want to be as accurate as possible. Staying on stumps and making opposition players play the most difficult shots; this has been a key focus for us.”
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New Zealand’s recent outings in England and Australia might not have gone to their liking, but Devine says the playing field is evened out at the world stage, as any side could trump the other on their day.
“In one-off games and in World Cup cricket, everyone starts on zero, so we are really looking forward to the opportunity to play against world-class teams that will all be vying to be there come the end of the World Cup.”
Devine has been a part of such a contest in the past against arch-rivals Australia, that too in subcontinental conditions. She fondly recalls the match from the 2016 edition of the Women's T20 World Cup in India.
“One of my favourite past T20 World Cup moments was also in the subcontinent, in India in 2016 when we beat the Aussies.”
Australia were restricted to 103/8 in the first innings on the back of Leigh Kasperek’s 3/13 before the Kiwis chased down their target with six wickets to spare. Devine contributed with a key wicket, run out and 17 runs in the game.
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“We had a fair bit of travel to get to the place we were playing but we just got on with it and had them in some early trouble before managing to get away with a pretty awesome win against a side that was flying pretty high. That’s certainly up there for me.”
Discussing their group, Devine is excited about facing challenging opponents and believes that these contests can bring the best out of her team.
“When you’ve got India and Australia, as well as Sri Lanka, it’s going to be a pretty tough pool to progress through, but we certainly love our chances coming up against those sorts of teams.”
New Zealand begin their campaign against India on 4 October in Dubai. Their match-up against Australia takes place on 8 October in Sharjah.