The White Ferns have crashed out of the women’s Twenty20 World Cup in London, and with the loss came the end of three of the most decorated careers New Zealand cricket has produced. A nine wicket defeat to England in the final Group B pool match closed out the title defence and drew the curtain on the international careers of Sophie Devine, Suzie Bates and Lea Tahuhu.
New Zealand went into the match at The Oval needing a win to keep their semi-final hopes alive. Captain Amelia Kerr won the toss and chose to bat, and the side posted a competitive 163 for six from their 20 overs. Kerr top scored with 42 from 34 balls, while Devine produced one last burst of the power hitting that defined her career, smashing 30 from just 14 deliveries with three sixes. Bates made 19 from 13 balls before she was run out off the final delivery of the innings, a fitting last act of a player who never stopped running hard.
A total of 163 looked defendable, but England never let the chase get away from them. Danni Wyatt-Hodge was unbeaten on 89 from 53 balls and was named player of the match, sharing an unbroken second wicket stand of 128 with Sophia Dunkley, who finished on 49 not out. England reached the target of 164 with 14 balls and nine wickets to spare, finishing the pool stage unbeaten and booking a semi-final place alongside the West Indies. You can read the full match report from RNZ and the official write-up from the ICC.
For New Zealand it was a deflating way to surrender the trophy they won in 2024. The White Ferns had arrived at this tournament as defending champions, but a stop-start campaign left them needing results to go their way, and against an England side that had won every match they came up short. The defeat means New Zealand bow out at the group stage of a World Cup they had hoped to make their own.
The bigger story, though, was the farewell. Devine, Bates and Tahuhu had all signalled this would be their last World Cup, and the final whistle confirmed the end of an era for the team. England’s players formed a guard of honour to mark the moment as the three walked off, a gesture that summed up the respect the trio command across the game.
Devine leaves the international stage after 316 white-ball matches across a 20-year career. She captained the side, opened the bowling and batting, and for years was the player opposition teams planned their cricket around. Her ability to clear the boundary at will made her one of the most feared hitters in the women’s game, and her final innings, 30 from 14 balls, was a reminder of exactly why.
Bates retires as the most capped player in White Ferns history and the greatest run scorer the team has produced, with 10,721 runs in 369 games. Her career stretched back to a different age of women’s cricket, one played largely in front of empty grounds and with little money in the game. She was there through the long climb to professionalism, and she leaves having seen the sport in New Zealand transformed. There is a strong case that no one has given more to the White Ferns over a longer period.
Tahuhu, the fast bowler whose pace and competitive streak made her a fixture of the attack, finishes after 206 matches over 15 years. Together the three retiring players account for the better part of two decades of New Zealand cricket, and their departure leaves a hole that will not be filled by any one replacement.
What comes next is a rebuild. New Zealand Cricket now faces the task of reshaping a side that has leaned heavily on its senior players for years. Amelia Kerr, still only in her mid-20s, has already taken on the captaincy and shapes as the natural leader of the next group, with younger players such as wicketkeeper Izzy Gaze expected to take on bigger roles. The talent is there, but the experience walking out the door is enormous, and the next 12 months will test how quickly the new generation can step up.
The timing is awkward. With a one-day World Cup on the calendar and a Commonwealth Games cycle to plan for, the selectors have little room to ease younger players in slowly. The White Ferns will be expected to remain competitive even as they integrate new names, and the early signs of how they handle the transition will come quickly once the international season resumes.
For now, the focus stays on the three who are leaving. They were part of the side that finally delivered a World Cup title in 2024, a result that capped years of near misses and disappointment. That triumph, rather than this group stage exit, is how their careers deserve to be remembered. New Zealand cricket has produced few players who gave as much for as long, and the game here is better for the years all three put in.
The end, when it came, was not the send-off any of them would have written. But careers of this length are measured across decades, not a single night in London, and on that measure Devine, Bates and Tahuhu leave the White Ferns having given just about everything they had.
What do you make of the White Ferns’ World Cup exit and the retirement of three of the team’s greats? Have your say in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job 🙂
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