Women’s CWC: New Zealand ready for tournament, have had fantastic preparation, says Devine

Women’s CWC: New Zealand ready for tournament, have had fantastic preparation, says Devine

New Zealand will take on the West Indies at the Bay Oval in Tauranga with the Women’s 50-over World Cup getting underway a year later than planned due to COVID-19.

New Zealand head into the tournament off the back of a 4-1 series win against India and a thumping victory over Australia in their second warm-up match, including 161 not out for Devine, the perfect starter to the mega attraction of the World Cup.

“It’s hugely exciting. It’s been a tournament that’s long been coming up with Covid delays here and there but to think that we finally here, tomorrow.

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It all kicks off, it is certainly extremely exciting,” she said during a virtual press conference.

“I know this group is ready, we have obviously had fantastic prep, we have come off a heavy diet of cricket over the summer and I don’t think we could be any better prepared heading into this World Cup.

So we’re really excited to finally get going. It’ll be interesting to see how the sleep goes tonight.

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I’ve tried to have a few naps today and they’ve not been that successful,” she added.

New Zealand sit in fifth in the ICC ODI team rankings, but Devine knows that the whole of Aotearoa will be hoping they are in the final come April 3.

“This tournament has been a long time coming and there is absolutely going to be nerves, there is going to be pressure, there is going to be an expectation.

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We’d be silly to think that those things won’t be there, especially being a home World Cup and the host country, there is an expectation there,” said Devine.

“But again, we’ve spoken at length as a group that we can only control what we can control and that is out on that cricket field.

We’re embracing all the small wee different things but there’s a lot of familiarity.

Obviously coming back here to Bay Oval, we have played a lot of cricket here, we’ve done a lot of training camps here, so it’s nice to come back to familiar surroundings,” she added.