Women’s World Cup 2025 Team Watch: New Zealand look to aim for the ICC double having won the T20 World Cup.
The Women’s World Cup 2025 is New Zealand’s chance to go ahead and create a further bit of history.
After winning the T20 World Cup the previous year, New Zealand will be aiming for the double. They have a combination of youth and experience under the leadership of Sophie Devine, 36, who will be retiring from ODIs following the World Cup. They have experienced players like Suzie Bates, Lea Tahuhu, Amelia Kerr, and Maddy Green in addition to Devine, who is participating in her fifth ODI World Cup. Several others, including as Georgia Plimmer, Polly Inglis, Eden Carson, and Izzy Gaze, will be participating in their maiden ODI World Cup.
Since their most recent home match against Sri Lanka in March, New Zealand will be entering the competition without having played any ODI matches in the previous six months. After losing to England (at home and away), India, and Australia, that is also the only ODI series they have won since the beginning of 2024. They were on a 10-match losing streak going into the T20 World Cup last year, but they won the competition, so the other teams wouldn’t take them lightly.
A couple of its World Cup-bound players, Plimmer, Jess Kerr, Brooke Halliday, and Flora Devonshire, participated in a two-week program at the CSK academy in Chennai in August, in addition to winter sessions in New Zealand. While a few others, including Amelia Kerr, participated in the Hundred through August, Bates played ten games in the ECB Women’s One-Day competition during the summer, hitting 163 for Durham against Somerset.
After warm-up matches against South Africa and India, New Zealand will play the reigning champions, Australia, in Indore to start their campaign. Green hit a century in one of their two warm-up matches against England in Abu Dhabi, while Bates and Plimmer each got fifties.
Legspinning all-rounder Amelia Kerr, who is only 24, has 77 ODI experience and will be playing in her third 50-over World Cup. She is New Zealand’s greatest run scorer (1670) and wicket-taker (51) in ODIs over the past five years. Since finishing as New Zealand’s joint-highest wicket-taker in her debut World Cup in 2017, Kerr has developed into one of the team’s most vital members.
She won Player of the Tournament for her all-around performance in the T20 World Cup final against South Africa, as she hit 43 runs and took 3 for 24 to lead New Zealand to their first T20 championship. She is anticipated to have a significant impact in the middle overs with the ball and at bat at No. 3.