WOMEN’S CRICKET | A hurting India will look to bring high-flying Kiwis down to earth

New Zealand's historic victories in cricket against India set the stage for an intense ODI series in Ahmedabad.

There was this tall, athletic woman from Auckland one came across on a chilly, windy afternoon at Wimbledon last week. Maree, in London to visit her daughter, has played competitive cricket back home, and she was talking, with a tinge of disappointment, about New Zealand’s underachievement despite producing champion cricketers like Martin Crowe.

Maree must be a happy woman now — after that Super Sunday for New Zealand cricket.

At Bengaluru, the men won a Test match for the first time in India in 36 years. A few hours later, across the Arabian Sea at Dubai, the women won the T20 World Cup, for the first time ever.

If the Arabian nights provided memories of a lifetime for New Zealand’s female cricketers, they were a nightmare for their Indian counterparts. The Women in Blue failed to make the semifinals.

Their campaign had begun on the wrong foot, losing to New Zealand. It would prove costly in the end, as the Kiwis edged past India in the group and entered the last four.

Harmanpreet Kaur’s women have a chance for immediate revenge. They take on New Zealand in the first of a three-match ODI series here on Thursday.

It is not just the score from the T20 World Cup’s that the Indian women have to settle; they had been thrashed 4-1 when the two sides met in an ODI series. That was in New Zealand in early 2022.