
What a thrilling start to cricket’s oldest tournament’s 12th season. On Friday, hosts New Zealand came close to pulling off a stunning chase against the West Indies in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup opener. It’s another thing that the defending champs from 2000 were the overwhelming favourites.
New Zealand won the toss and elected to bat first.
Hayley Matthews (119 off 128) for the West Indies and Sophie Devine (108 off 127) for New Zealand both scored centuries to keep the match on a level keel, but the White Ferns fell three runs short of a 260-run goal in a final-over finale. Deandra Dottin took Katey Martin and Jess Kerr off the 2nd and 4th balls, respectively, and a run out of Fran Jonas off the last ball meant New Zealand could only manage 256 runs in six balls.
The pursuit was well-managed by West Indies, who kept a close check on the run rate.
Anisa Mohammed became the first female spinner to take 300 international wickets, while Devine surpassed the 3000 ODI run mark. Martin and Jess Kerr appeared to be on their way to chasing down the objective for New Zealand.
Deandra Dottin, who had not bowled in her previous nine One-Day Internationals, offered to bowl the final over and took two wickets and a run out to bowl out New Zealand.