Women's World Cup 2022: New Zealand bounce back to beat Bangladesh after Suzie Bates' fireworks in rain-hit match

Women's World Cup 2022: Riding on a quickfire fifty from Suzie Bates, New Zealand beat Bangladesh by 9 wickets in a rain-affected match in Dunedin to open ther account in the tournament.

New Zealand bounced back from their loss to West Indies by winning a rain-hit match at the University Oval in Dunedin to open their account at the Women's World Cup 2022. With the match getting reduced to 27 overs per side, New Zealand gunned down a 141-run target with ease, riding on Suzie Bates's unbeaten 79 on Monday.

New Zealand suffered a crushing defeat in their World Cup opener at home against the West Indies. Chasing 260, New Zealand failed to gun down 6 runs in the final over, losing three wickets in the process. However, the White Ferns did not level it until the last over on Monday as they got past the finish line in just 20 overs.

Despite losing captain Sophie Devine early for 14, New Zealand rode on a 108-run unbeaten stand between Bates and Amelia Kerr to make light work of the chase in their 2nd match of the tournament.

While Bates hit 8 boundaries for her 68-ball 79, Amelia continued her good form, hitting 5 boundaries for her 37-ball 47 not out.

Stressing that New Zealand are happy after bouncing back from their opening defeat, captain Sophie Devine said: "It's the nature of the tournament that we have games coming quickly with very less turnaround time. Grateful to the ground staff for getting a game of nearly 50 overs, to Bangladesh for coming up and the umpires for getting the game on."

Earlier, Bangladesh got off to a solid start with 59 runs in less than 10 overs for the opening wicket. Shamima Sultana hit 33 from 36 balls and Fargana Hoque got to a fifty but the rest of the Bangladesh batting unit did not come up with considerable contributions.

There were as many as 3 run-outs in the Bangladesh innings even as Satterthwaite picked up 3 wickets to top the bowling charts for New Zealand.