The White Ferns have sent Suzie Bates into ODI retirement with the kind of result her career deserved, beating England by 17 runs on Duckworth-Lewis-Stern at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff to square the three-match series 1-1. The win arrived in fits and starts under heavy Welsh skies, with rain trimming the contest to 33 overs a side and eventually ending it altogether, but New Zealand were comfortably ahead of the par score when the umpires called time and the players accepted the result.
It was Bates’ 184th and final one-day international for New Zealand, the end of a stretch of cricket that began in 2006 and turned her into one of the most prolific run-scorers the women’s 50-over game has ever produced. The captain of two Cricket World Cup campaigns and an Olympian in basketball before that, Bates leaves the format with more than 5,800 ODI runs and a place in the line of New Zealand sport’s quiet legends. She has flagged that this year’s T20 World Cup will be her last appearance in the silver fern, and the Cardiff result means the longer format is now behind her.
Her farewell innings was brief. Asked to chase a DLS-adjusted target of 184 from 33 overs, New Zealand lost Bates lbw to Lauren Bell early on, the England seamer winning a tight verdict that ended the goodbye almost before it had begun. Bell was a wicket away from a hat-trick at one stage, with captain Amelia Kerr and Georgia Plimmer also falling leg-before, and the tourists were 40-3 on a pitch that was doing enough to keep England interested.
What turned the chase was a calm, unfussy partnership between Brooke Halliday and Isabella Gaze. Halliday finished unbeaten on 42 from 54 balls, anchoring the innings with the same straight-batted patience she has built her one-day game around. Gaze, the wicketkeeper, made 22 not out from 23 deliveries and steered New Zealand through the closing overs before the second rain stoppage arrived. The pair put on 44 together and never let the required rate run away, and that was enough.
When the players walked off for the final time, New Zealand were 141-4 from 24.4 overs, needing 43 from 50 balls. With no sign of the weather lifting, the umpires confirmed what the DLS sheet had already told both dressing rooms. The White Ferns were 17 runs ahead of par. The series, which had looked likely to slip away after a one-wicket loss in the first match and a washout in the second, was level.
England had set up the contest with a careful 181-7 from their 33 overs after Kerr won the toss and put the home side in. Alice Capsey top-scored with a run-a-ball 45, Heather Knight added 28 from 42 and Amy Jones a sharp 27 from 21 lower down, and although the innings never quite broke free, England were always going to be hard to chase on a slow surface that already had moisture in it before the umpires intervened.
For New Zealand, Rosemary Mair did the heavy lifting with the new ball. The seamer finished with 2-41 from her seven overs, including the early breakthrough that gave the White Ferns control of the powerplay, and added a run-out for good measure. Bree Illing, in her first international tour, picked up 2-29 from her seven and looked the part, hurrying batters with a wicket-to-wicket length that suited the conditions. Eden Carson chipped in with a wicket of her own. The bowling card, as captain Kerr noted afterwards, is in better shape than it has looked for some time.
“At 40-3 on a tricky wicket, we absorbed that pressure, it was brilliant to watch,” Kerr told reporters after the match. England captain Charlie Dean, who steered her side home by one wicket in the first ODI with an unbeaten 31, settled for the series draw and the knowledge that her batters had stuck around long enough to make 181 look workable.
The bigger picture for New Zealand is mixed. A drawn ODI series in England, with one washout factored in, is a fair return on tour for a team mid-rebuild and still working out its top order. The bowling looked sharper than it has all summer, with Mair and Illing forming a pace partnership that could carry into the home season. The batting is the worry. The collapse in the first ODI at Durham, when the White Ferns lost their last seven for not many and let England creep over the line with a wicket to spare, was a reminder that the middle order is still a work in progress.
It is also the end of an era, in the most literal sense. Bates has been part of every meaningful White Ferns campaign since the mid-2000s, and her ODI exit, even on a damp afternoon at Sophia Gardens, is one of the larger moments in New Zealand cricket this decade. The teammates lining up to applaud her off the field knew it. The win was the gift.
Attention now turns to the T20 series against England, which begins later this week, and to the T20 World Cup later in the year, where Bates will play her final innings in a New Zealand jersey. Halliday and Gaze, the unbeaten pair in Cardiff, will likely have larger roles in the short format too. The rebuild, on this evidence, is moving in the right direction.
What do you think β is the White Ferns batting order in a healthier place than it looked at the start of the tour, and how should Suzie Bates be remembered when she walks off for the last time at the T20 World Cup? Drop a comment below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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