For the third time this World Cup, the White Ferns fell just short of victory. Photo / Getty
For the third time this World Cup, the White Ferns fell just short of victory. Photo / Getty
The ifs, buts and maybes will haunt the White Ferns.
Stand-in captain Amy Satterthwaite admitted as much while poring over the immediate aftermath of New Zealand's agonising one-wicket defeat to England at Eden Park on Sunday, a result that all but ends their World Cup semifinal hopes.
Threetight pool matches – the tournament-opening three-run loss to the West Indies; two-wicket defeat against South Africa and this latest near miss – will prove costly in the quest to reach the knockouts.
The White Ferns could have reversed each of those defeats but they all carry the familiar theme of batting collapses and not scoring enough runs.
The rollercoaster of emotions was still raw when Satterthwaite, filling in for injured captain Sophie Devine, fronted after England held on for a tense victory that confined the White Ferns to two wins from six games.
"If you see our changing room at the moment it's difficult for everybody regardless of how experienced or old or young. Everyone is devastated," Satterthwaite said.
"We're such a tight-knit group and we really believe in each other and we've done a lot of hard work over the past 12 to 18 months. We genuinely believed we could compete with the top teams.
"There's some pretty devastated humans in that changing room. We'll reflect on the tournament at some point and if we're honest the batting was probably the thing that let us down the most.
"The ball has tried to keep us in the tournament and fought extremely hard. We can be proud of that. But putting up scores of 200 and 220 odd against world-class opposition, unfortunately it's not enough. We need to find a way to get bigger totals on the board."
Once again the batting short-changed the White Ferns against England. They weren't helped by losing influential opener Devine, just as she was set, to a back injury. The skipper's departure stalled New Zealand's innings. While she eventually returned, Devine was severely hampered and the damage was done.
Sophie Devine went down injured against England. Photo / Photosport
Losing 8-69 was always going to be problematic. For a side that hinted at genuine progress in the pre-World Cup 4-1 ODI series win against India, the immediate batting regression was hard to stomach. Shot selection and game management proved consistent issues.
"The frustrating part is I felt we turned a corner in the series against India before this tournament. We started to put some consistent totals on the board around that 260-270 range. Everyone was playing their role superbly," Satterthwaite said.
"We've had some things not go our way with Sophie's injury and we lost Lauren Down coming into the tournament but I thought we would produce bigger scores than we have.
"Sometimes we possibly get ahead of ourselves and think we need more than we do.
"If we look back there can't be too many 80-90-100 partnerships. We probably got started and didn't have the killer instinct that put us in those strong positions to allow our middle to lower order to launch.
"We've made a lot of progress in the last 12 months in the way we play spin, the way we're proactive with our feet, but there were times in this tournament we probably let the bowlers bowl to us. In tournaments like this you can't sit back."
For the third time this World Cup, the White Ferns fell just short of victory. Photo / Getty
Having harboured visions of contesting the World Cup title on home soil, the first for 22 years, the White Ferns are instead contemplating one final match against Pakistan in Christchurch on Saturday, and what might have been.
"You always hope you could be on the other side of those results. I'm proud of the way the group has stuck at it each game. We've got things in each one we'll look back and wish we'd done better.
"Coming into a tournament like this you always have predictions of where you think you should end up. It's the funny thing about World Cups there's always interesting results on the day. Teams are showing how close the women's game is getting now. The likes of South Africa are a well-rounded side. West Indies are extremely dangerous.
"Unfortunately for us we've probably got 80 per cent right against those teams but that 20 per cent has really hurt us."
