White Ferns captain Sophie Devine admits she's leaving this year's Women's T20 World Cup with a "crappy feeling" after the New Zealand women's team failed to advance yet again on the sport's biggest stage.
The White Ferns' campaign came to an end last night after their four-run loss to Australia while chasing 155 runs.
The defeat meant the White Ferns missed escaping the group stage of an ICC tournament for a third-straight time.
New Zealand faltered heavily at the 2018 T20 World Cup, with heavy losses to Australia and India, and the year prior failed to qualify for the 50-over World Cup semi-finals as well.
Devine said she was gutted the team had come up just short against the top-ranked Aussies.
"I think, skill-wise, we are there," Devine said after the match. "Everyone knows we are a really talented side and we've got the depth.
"We've seen today that, despite me not firing, Suzie [Bates] and Rachel [Priest] not firing, we came really close to chasing down a strong Australian side.
"Whether it's a mindset, whether it's a mental thing, whether it's game awareness, whether it's just experience of playing in those pressure situations."
Devine said the team would debrief once they were back in New Zealand about what went wrong.
"We haven't played too much international cricket together in the last 12 months - whether that's something. But when we get back home we'll certainly go through everything and nitpick at it, because it is a crappy feeling to miss out again.
"It's really raw, but we certainly want to keep pushing and showing that we deserve to be there."
But Devine believes the team can turn things around with the 50-over World Cup on home soil coming up next year.
"As I said, we were actually really close. The India game and now here [against Australia], we were really close to [beating] sides with a lot more money, a lot more resources, a lot more player depth, and we took them within five or six runs.
"It shows that we are not far, but we have got to do things maybe slightly differently in New Zealand, because we don't have the same amount of depth, resources.
"We certainly have things in our favour and that's what we keep working with."
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