Records threatened as rampant NZ women rout Indians

David Liverman

July 11, 2002

India's women were humbled for the second time in two days at Jersey, folding for an embarrassing 26 chasing a modest target set by the world champion New Zealanders.

The second match of the women's tri-series offered a re-match of the CricInfo Women's World Cup 2000 semi-final. New Zealand won by nine wickets on that occasion, and this match was to prove just as one-sided. The margin of 142 runs suggests that the gulf between the top two and the rest of the world in the women's game is still a significant one.

Yesterday India had struggled to 59 all out and England took over 30 overs to attain a meagre target; today runs continued to be hard to come by on the Grainville ground wicket.

New Zealand were asked to bat, and after an initial flurry of runs from the openers were pegged back by the dismissal of Nicola Payne and Rebecca Rolls by the medium pace of Jhulan Goswami.

When Kate Pulford was bowled by Hemlata Kala, New Zealand were in some trouble at 36/3.

Skipper Emily Drumm and Haidee Tiffen established an excellent partnership, Tiffen curbing her natural instincts and batting carefully early on, taking more than 20 balls to get off the mark. She had six boundaries in her well-crafted 37, and the score had reached 90 when she became the first of four victims of Deepa Kulkarni's flighted left-arm spin.

Drumm batted steadily for a good half-century, being eighth out as wickets tumbled in the final overs. Kulkarni was the pick of the bowlers with 4-37, and Goswami took three relatively expensive wickets. The total of 168 was respectable in the circumstances, but proved to be moe than adequate.

As it turned out both Drumm and Tiffen out-scored the Indian team, as the innings started badly and got worse.

The Indians had no answer to the pace and bounce of Rachel Pullar who cut through the top order reducing the innings to the shambles of eight wickets down for only 10 runs. At that point the only question left to answer was whether they could avoid setting a new record low score in women's one-day international matches.

Some resistance from Goswami and No 11 batsman Neetu David saw them just pass the previous record of 23 (set by Pakistan batting a player short against Australia at Melbourne in 1996/97) but when the final wicket fell on 26 it was the third lowest ever (and the lowest by India, and by any team against New Zealand).

The scorecard makes depressing reading for Indian fans, with Goswami and extras tieing for top score with six, and four ducks. The innings lasted only 19.1 overs, the second shortest on record (failing to beat Pakistan's 13.4 over innings against Australia at Hyderabad in 1997/98).

Pullar finished with the impressive figures of 7-4-10-5, her second five wicket haul in One-Day Internationals. She became the first New Zealander and seventh player overall to achieve that feat, joining England's Joanne Chamberlain and Gillian Smith, Australia's Cathryn Fitzpatrick, Lyn Fullston and Charmaine Mason, and Pakistan's Shaiza Khan. At one point she had taken five wickets for just two runs.

Although New Zealand as world champions were strongly favoured in this match, the ease of their win over a team considered to be in the top five in the world was surprising. Although run-scoring was difficult, the Indian bats performance perhaps reflected their lack of preparation for these matches. Arriving only shortly before the start of the series and without any warm-up matches, the adjustment to playing high-quality bowling on unfamiliar wickets was too much for them. New Zealand toured both the Netherlands and Ireland before this series, and reaped full benefit for their practice in this match.

© Cricinfo

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Matches

India Women v New Zealand Women at St Saviour

Series/Tournaments

Women's Tri-Series

Teams

England

India

New Zealand