Cricket: White Ferns falls to defeat as Australia sets world record

The White Ferns are no match for the Australian one-day cricket giant.

Australia set a world record at Mount Maunganui today, claiming their 22nd consecutive ODI victory with a dominating six-wicket victory.

They hunted down New Zealand’s 212 with 69 balls remaining, breaking the record for the Australian men’s team, which won 21 consecutive ODIs in a span of four months in 2003.

Australia’s streak took longer to compile, with their last loss in October 2017, and seven of those 22 wins have been against New Zealand.

Today’s victory was one of their easiest efforts, as the White Ferns failed to establish an impressive total.

At 159-2 with 13 overs remaining, a reasonable scoring seemed possible, but the intermediate order could not be thrown and the platform was wasted.

Whether it was a well-placed platform is debatable, as the top 90 of Lauren Down’s career anchored the innings, but 134 balls came out, with her strike rate possibly leaving her fellow hitters needing to be more aggressive than would have been ideal. .

Amy Satterthwaite (32 of 50) and Amelia Kerr (33 of 46) made reasonable contributions, but a controversial coup to fire Kerr led to the collapse, with no one else passing 13 such as Megan Schutt (4-32) and Nicola Carey (3). – 34) claimed crucial windows.

A missed opportunity from a competitive total was followed by brutal missed opportunities on the field. The first scalps of Rachael Haynes (caught behind Jess Kerr for 14) and star captain Meg Lanning (caught behind Hannah Rowe for five) cut Australia to 37-2 and gave the Ferns a chance.

However, a poor fielding disappointed the hosts, with two clear chances and several other half chances that fell through.

The worst part was that Lea Tahuhu dropped a single long time catch offered by Alyssa Healy, with Healy making 65, most importantly, 68 balls.

Healy’s aggression gave Australia the impetus that New Zealand innings always lacked, and even as she and Beth Mooney were fired in quick succession, there was no pressure, with the required race pace always simplistic.

In the end, Ellyse Perry – almost caught the second ball before going undefeated at 56 – and Ashleigh Gardner (53 not out of 41) saw Australia home with ease.

Satterthwaite acknowledged that the Ferns total was not good enough, which ruined the execution rate at the top of the order.

“212 against most teams probably won’t be enough, especially against a quality team. Upstairs, they played pretty well, I thought we weathered the storm pretty well, but we probably lagged a little behind the eight ball.

“We probably put a lot of pressure in that order from medium to low to score at a fast pace and bring us to a total that we thought would be defensible.”

The Rose Bowl, which the Ferns haven’t won since 1999, is still up for grabs, and Satterthwaite looks for continued improvement before the second game of the three-game series at the same venue on Wednesday.

“We have to keep supporting our skills. We showed in the T20 series that we can be competitive and we have to keep believing. As much as this hurts, we really do improve in some areas from where we were with England. We will end up in a positive place at some point, I’m sure. “