Barely 24 hours after losing to India in front of a packed home crowd at Edgbaston, England turned in another disappointing performance as they were crushed by New Zealand in their third place playoff clash.
The game was, in many ways, the inverse of the group stage game contested by the same two teams- England had won by 7 wickets with fifty balls to spare on that occasion; New Zealand did so here by 8 wickets and with 49 balls to spare.
Like in the group game, the team winning the toss opted to bat first- in this case England. However they got off to a poor start with both Dani Wyatt and Alice Capsey back in the hut early, with Hayley Jensen accounting for the former and Hannah Rowe the latter.
In strode skipper Nat Sciver, and she smashed five boundaries en route to a 19 ball 27 before being bowled by Sophie Devine. Sciver, many felt, had been responsible for the defeat against India with her tactics with both the bat and as captain coming into question. England were in a comfortable position there, and only needed 33 off the last four. Even more weirdly, knowing that India would have one fielder less in the final over, she opted to take a risky second off the fifth ball of the penultimate over that saw here run out. Sciver also chose to have Katherine Brunt and Maia Bouchier batting ahead of Sophie Ecclestone, who has been a proven six hitter at this level.
Bouchier’s miserable tournament with the bat continued as she made just four here, and it was only due to a 37 run partnership between Ecclestone and Amy Jones that the hosts could cross the three figure mark. However a triple blow saw them lose three wickets in the space of five balls, and they could eventually only manage 110/9 in their allotted 20.
A quick look at England’ scores for this tournament via Flashscore showed that this was comfortably their worst performance with the bat, and New Zealand duly took advantage, with Suzie Bates and Devine getting them off to a flyer. They added 54 in four and a half overs before Bates was dismissed by Sciver, but the damage had already been done by then.
Georgia Plimmer fell cheaply, but Devine and Amelia Kerr raced to the target in just under 12 overs, with the former finishing on 51 off 40 and the latter having a 15-ball 21 to her name.