Devine, Bates and Tahuhu were named in the squad
\n LONDON
\nRetiring New Zealand cricket greats Sophie Devine, Suzie Bates and Lea Tahuhu were named Wednesday in the White Ferns\u2019 Women\u2019s T20 World Cup squad for their \u201cfinal mission\u201d of defending the title.
\nThe 15-strong squad is led by star all-rounder Amelia Kerr and features 10 players who won the title in Dubai in 2024, beating South Africa in the final.
\nDevine, Bates and Tahuhu had all announced they would retire after the World Cup, which takes place in England and Wales in June-July.
\n\u201cTo have our three most senior players all finishing their careers at the same tournament is a rare and special occasion,\u201d coach Ben Sawyer said.
\n\u201cAll three have had distinguished careers in their own right and given so much to this team and the game in general.\u201d
\nSawyer called the tournament their \u201cfinal mission\u201d.
\nNew Zealand were shock winners in 2024 but did so without having to face Australia or England, viewed by most as the top two teams in women\u2019s cricket.
\nAustralia were stunned by South Africa while England were beaten by the West Indies.
\nThe White Ferns beat India in the semi-final and then South Africa to win the title.
\nKerr was the star of the tournament taking 15 wickets and scoring 135 runs.
\nSawyer said New Zealand have only got stronger since 2024, having won seven of their last eight T20 matches, including big scores of 190 plus on four occasions.
\nAhead of 2024 the White Ferns had lost 11 T20 matches in a row.
\n\u201cI believe we\u2019ve landed on a well-balanced squad that features a mix of experience and exciting young talent,\u201d Sawyer said.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve worked really hard over the past 12 months to develop our batting depth in particular, which we\u2019ve seen bear fruit in our recent home series against South Africa and Zimbabwe.\u201d
\nNew Zealand will play the West Indies, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Scotland and England in their group.
\nSquad: Amelia Kerr (capt.), Suzie Bates, Sophie Devine, Flora Devonshire, Izzy Gaze, Maddy Green, Brooke Halliday, Bree Illing, Polly Inglis, Jess Kerr, Rosemary Mair, Nensi Patel, Georgia Plimmer, Izzy Sharp, Lea Tahuhu.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Devine, Bates and Tahuhu were named in the squad LONDON Retiring New Zealand cricket greats Sophie Devine, Suzie Bates and Lea Tahuhu were named Wednesday in the White Ferns\u2019 Women\u2019s T20 World Cup squad for their \u201cfinal mission\u201d of defending the title. The 15-strong squad is led by star all-rounder Amelia Kerr and features 10 …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":97046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97034","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97034"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97034\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97048,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97034\/revisions\/97048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97034"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97034"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97034"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}