New Zealand batter, Brooke Halliday, spoke following the White Fern's loss to England in the 1st T20 in Dunedin. England enjoyed at 27-run victory as Tammy Beaumont earned her 100th T20 cap after being omitted from the squad in 2022.
Skipper, Heather Knight, set up England's innings with the bat as she scored 63 from 39 deliveries. Middle order batter, Maia Bouchier added 43* as the visitors pushed to 160/4.
In reply, New Zealand struggled against the spin pairing of Sarah Glenn and Charlie Dean. Suzie Bates' 65 from 51 balls was in vain as the hosts fell short, crawling to 133.
“It was good to finally get down the park with quite a big build up, a couple of warm up games against England so it was really good to get out there," Halliday said.
"As a team obviously the result didn't really go our way, but I thought we had a pretty good fight out there and there's a lot of work on and also positives that we've taken out of it.”
Missing key players
White Ferns captain, Sophie Devine and all-rounder, Amelia Kerr have spent the past month in India, playing for their Women's Premier League sides: RCB and Mumbai Indians. Devine won the second edition of the tournament but both players are set to return for the second T20.
Halliday spoke about the challenges of playing without usual members of their XI and how the side have over come them. “I think we manage it quite well. I think comms [communication] from the New Zealand cricket staff have been really good and I think that makes flexibility or adaptability a little bit easier," she said.
“It was pretty cool to see Sophie [Devine] winning the WPL with RCB but at the same time it's two big players for us. I think Susie [Bates] and Maddie [Green] led the team really well out in the field and a couple of the younger players coming through and Mikaela [Greig] debuting, it was really cool to see."
“It's really good [that they are returning]. Melie [Amelia Kerr] and Sophie [Devine] bring a lot of personality and also a lot of energy into the group. I think it would be really good for us coming from the 1st T20 into the 2nd T20. They bring a lot of experience so I think we see them tonight so it'd be really cool to catch up.”
Where it went wrong
“I think the way that Heather Knight went out there and basically took the game away and their batting performance, it was always going to be quite difficult for us to replicate that," she explained.
"I think the chat out there was just trying to take the game as deep as possible and a couple of big overs would have changed that whole innings for us and it's just unfortunate that we weren’t able to do that. Like I said earlier, a lot of work on and a lot of positives we can take."
“In the middle order, you don't really know what kind of situation you come out and you’re gonna be there trying to finish the game, maybe only chasing run a run a ball or you could be going out there trying to chase twelve so again it goes back to that adaptability and just reading the game for what it is at the day of the day, whatever the situation that's needed."
"Hopefully I'll execute a little bit better and actually get us over the line.”
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