The White Ferns have lost the second T20 international to Australia by 40 runs at North Sydney Oval, and with it the Rose Bowl, after a night in which the bowlers did their job and the batting fell well short of a target of 168. Australia made 167 for seven, built almost entirely around 84 from vice-captain Ash Gardner, and New Zealand replied with 127 for eight. The hosts lead the three-match series 2-0 with one game to play on Thursday night.
The result confirms the trophy stays in Australian hands for another season. New Zealand Cricket had put the Rose Bowl up for a standalone T20 series for the first time this month, extending a contest first played in 1985 and held 31 times before this tour. Australia has held it for more than 26 years. Under the new arrangement the trophy will be contested again in March, when the two sides meet in a three-match one-day series in Canberra and Melbourne, the first time it has been on the line twice in the same season.
Amelia Kerr won the toss and chose to bowl, and for most of the Australian innings that looked a sound decision. Bree Illing had Georgia Voll caught and bowled off the fourth ball of the match, the opener’s second duck in as many games after she fell to Illing for two on Sunday. Jess Kerr removed Phoebe Litchfield for seven and Nensi Patel had Ellyse Perry caught by Jess Kerr for 11, leaving Australia at 41 for three inside seven overs.
Beth Mooney and Gardner then added 60 for the fourth wicket, with Mooney surviving a dropped catch on the backward square leg boundary in the third over before Maddy Green held a diving catch at long on to remove her for 39 off 28 balls, off a Jess Kerr slower ball. Patel bowled Georgia Wareham for three and Amelia Kerr bowled Annabel Sutherland for 10, and at 137 for six after 17 and a half overs the White Ferns had a real chance to keep the total under 160.
Gardner would not let them. She reached fifty off 29 balls and finished with 84 from 45, hitting 10 fours and four sixes on the compact Sydney ground, before being run out by Amelia Kerr and Rosemary Mair off the final ball of the innings. Jess Kerr finished with two for 34 and Patel two for 30 from their four overs each, while Illing took one for 26 and Amelia Kerr one for 37.
“We didn’t come out fast enough with the bat and they bowled really well,” Green told RNZ after the match.
The chase never got going. Georgia Plimmer, who had made an unbeaten 85 in the first game, was caught by Voll off Kim Garth for six in the third over. Flora Devonshire was bowled by Lucy Hamilton for 12, and New Zealand had 56 for two at the drinks break, needing more than 11 an over from the back half of the innings.
Amelia Kerr top scored with 32 from 38 balls before Gardner had her caught by Wareham, and Green made 26 off 22 before she was run out by Wareham. Izzy Sharp was out for 10 three balls later, caught by Hamilton off Wareham, and the required rate was beyond reach. Polly Inglis hit 19 from 10 balls late on, with three fours, but Wareham bowled her and then Mair in the final over to finish with three for 18 from four overs, the best figures of the night. Gardner’s two for 17 from three overs completed her all-round performance and she was named player of the match.
“It’s just about how we keep pushing a quality Australian side,” Green said. “It’s certainly all there it’s just how you put it all together in a complete performance and it’s what you need to do against a quality Australian side.”
The gap between the two sides was in the batting, and in particular in the absence of a New Zealand innings to match Gardner’s. The White Ferns had shown on Sunday that they could post a total, when Plimmer’s unbeaten 85 and Green’s 56 carried New Zealand to 162, a total Australia only chased down with two wickets and seven balls to spare. On Tuesday the same batting order managed two boundaries from Amelia Kerr in 38 balls and two from Green in 22, and the only scoring that kept pace with the required rate came from Inglis when the match was already gone.
For Australia, the win was its 12th T20 in a row, a run that includes an unbeaten World Cup campaign in the UK in June and July. Gardner credited captain Sophie Molineux for the mood in the side, telling AAP that “It’s led by Soph, who has brought this different mantra to the group, and the fun aspect as well.” She added, “For us, there’s always someone there who’s wanting your spot so to have that competition always helps.”
Litchfield’s return from a minor hip complaint, in place of Tahlia McGrath, was the only change to the Australian side. New Zealand named an unchanged team from the first match.
This tour is the White Ferns’ first assignment of the 2026-27 season and the first under interim head coach Dean Brownlie, with former Black Caps Andre Adams and Martin Guptill brought into the coaching group for the series. The third T20 is back at North Sydney Oval on Thursday at 9.15pm New Zealand time, live on Sky Sport. A win would avoid a series sweep but cannot bring the Rose Bowl home, and the next chance to do that comes in the one-day series in March.
Did the White Ferns leave runs out there, or is the gap to Australia simply too wide right now? Tell us what you made of the match 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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