How the White Ferns coaches planned a shock women’s T20 Word Cup win
Sunday, 27 October 2024
ANALYSIS: Bigger scores, trust in your team-mates, and hitting the wickets - three tactics which helped pave the way for the White Ferns to win the T20 World Cup.
New Zealand’s victory in the women’s cricket final on Monday in Dubai even surprised head coach Ben Sawyer, but the Australian and his staff had compiled an approach that they felt was going to serve the side well at the tournament.
Instead, it worked to near-perfection as the White Ferns saw off title-challengers India in their first match, were beaten by two-time defending champions Australia but won their other two group matches to make the last four, and then overcame surprise semifinalists the West Indies, and finally, South Africa.
The side got big performances from the vastly-experienced trio of captain Sophie Devine, opener Suzie Bates and seamer Lea Tahuhu, allrounder Melie Kerr was named Player of the Tournament, Brooke Halliday’s batting in the finals matches was key, and young players Georgia Plimmer, Eden Carson, Fran Jonas and Izzy Gaze all made notable contributions.
It was the previous T20 World Cup - held in South Africa in early 2023 - that saw a change in approach for the side, although it may have been difficult to notice.
Against eventual champs Australia, NZ were beaten by 97 runs after being bowled out for 76, and in their next group match, they made just 67 against the hosts in another heavy defeat to end their chances of making the knockout stage.
“We got bowled out there cheaply again, but along the way, we’d spoken openly about the World Cup and knew that we had to stop scoring 120-130 and start scoring 160 to be a competitive team,” Sawyer said this week ahead of a white-ball series in India.
“We knew that by taking risks to score 160, there could be days where we get bowled out for 70 or 80, and we’ll be comfortable with that, and we were.
“Then you get told that it’s the worst performance ever … but we knew we were trying to get to 160. That was probably the first step along the way.
So it gave Sawyer ample satisfaction at the 2024 event when they made 160-4 batting first against India, before dismissing their opponents for 102, and then when the pressure was at its greatest, New Zealand racked up 158-5 in the final, which proved 32 too many for South Africa.
Sawyer praised batting coach Dean Brownlie in particular, and new assistant Craig McMilan, for installing a trust among the batters to allow them to bat boldly.
“His [Brownlie’s] real theme has been around trust - and trusting that if it’s not your day, then it’s the person behind you.
“What we’re trying to develop is that if you are struggling out in the middle, you don’t have to just work your way through that. Maybe that’s a bit of what we’ve had in the past … ‘what’s going to come behind me?’. But now, they think ‘If I get out, I’ve got another good player coming in behind me’.”
The coaching staff also spent plenty of time trying to work out the most efficient way to bat on slow pitches - the tournament was due to be played in Bangladesh, but after civil upheaval was switched to the United Arab Emirates late, where the pitches still fitted with the White Ferns’ plans.
“We looked at games we’d played in Sri Lanka and the West Indies, on slow wickets, and saw that in every game we won, we scored off more balls than the opposition,” Sawyer said.
“We understand that boundaries win T20 games, but from the evidence we had on slow wickets we had success on, we had more scoring shots.
“With the ball, it was literally ‘hit the stumps’. It was really simple - we know we’ve got to bowl slower balls, we know we’ve got to bowl wide lines, change of pace - but maybe that was too much to cram into one preparation - and made it simply ‘let’s hit the stumps as many times as we possibly can’ and batters will make mistakes.”
The White Ferns had also made big strides with their fitness - Mitch Caine is their new Athlete Performance Lead, while long-term Black Caps strength and conditioning coach Chris Donaldson pushed the players hard over a winter programme.
“We spoke about how it was going to be hot, how it was going to be difficult,” Sawyer said.
“We’ve got lots of messages over the last few days about ‘how was the night out after?’ but the celebrations were a little bit quiet because the girls were absolutely cooked. They left everything on the field. We saw two or three girls with cramp, we had a couple of girls physically sick - it was a really really hot night, but I feel like we out-ran them [South Africa], we out-fielded them.”
Sawyer said the camp had to keep faith with what they were working on as the losses mounted and the young talent came to grips with the top level.
“I know it’s easy to say now … there was lots of noise around losing those games and I can completely understand that; it’s high-level sport and wins and losses are what we are judged on,” Sawyer said.
“It’s just time. It might sound a bit simple, but I use the example of Georgia Plimmer - her first real-taste of opening was against the second-best team in the world, coming off the back of our winter.
“I can’t say I thought we’d win a World Cup.
“We knew how we wanted to play, but the biggest thing for me is that we wanted to set this team up for success in the future.
“We know in a couple of years’ time we’re going to have a couple of absolute greats leave and we didn’t want to have to be shocked by that. We had a bit of a rebuild after the last World Cup, with a few of the big names going … I guess I thought that was my responsibility not to leave that to someone else again.
“Fran [Jonas], Eden [Carson], it just takes a little time. I don’t think we’re anywhere near the finished product.
Sawyer said New Zealand Cricket is working really hard at developing the next level of talent.
“In my opinion, and I’ve said this before and to people at NZC so it’s not a secret, it’s about improving our daily training environment.
“The next level of girls, they’re not full-time. Everywhere else around the world they are. How do we bridge that gap? They’re bringing in winter contracts, training programmes for the under-19s, next year there’s development tours to England … how do we get them to play more cricket?
“With the current White Ferns, we’ve played a lot, we’ve trained a lot in these last six months, and you just get better by doing that. That’s it - I don’t think it’s rocket science, it’s time on tasks.
“How do we get the No.18, No.19, No.20 players in New Zealand ready so that when they’re the next Georgia Plimmer, they’re ready to go and they don’t have to learn so much on the job? Everyone at NZ Cricket is working to figure that out.
“We’re never going to have 120-140 professional players like Australia or England, but we need a critical mass, maybe 20-25.”
But at the tournament, the focus was greatly more specific.
“We had a bit of a theme going in - we had the analogy of a dartboard and we were just going to focus on a target and each game was its own little one,” Sawyer said.
“We actually carried a couple of dartboards around with us.
“With the final, we tried to do things very similar, and we managed that quite well.
“Before the final, we sat down and showed the players a video of things we’d done well in the tournament - all the wickets we’d taken, the boundaries we’d scored, the really good displays of fielding - and just said that our best is good enough; if we can repeat that one more time, we’re going to be in with a show.
“It was really nice to see that play out on the night.”