Yesterday's White Ferns win over England must be a turning point for the team and a canvas for the many shades of belief, writes Scotty Stevenson.
Nelson, Sunday. Former White Fern and long-time Canterbury captain Frankie McKay sits motionless in a Portacom overlooking the emerald outfield of Saxton Oval.
"They are going to win this," she says in her permacalm voice, her Kyanite eyes fixed on the action.
She is referring to New Zealand, who had earlier set England a target of 156 for victory. England are 22 runs away from reaching that target with seven wickets in hand. There are 22 balls left.
Only a genius or a special kind of masochist would think New Zealand had a chance…
Nelson could do with a spot of rain. The hills that climb out of Stoke and Richmond are the colour of thirsty earth, and last week's forecast showers have been indefinitely postponed. Sunday dawns overcast but warm, one of those mornings when you can sense the cloud cover is fighting a brief and ultimately losing battle against the sun.
The White Ferns have been fighting brief but ultimately losing battles against England. The five-match series is on the line.
In a hotel on the edge of the city, eleven players have woken to a day of reckoning.
It is always the same scene before a game. There are ground staff attending to the pitch, erecting a temporary fence to keep people off the small block of dried earth in the middle of their irrigated oasis. Sam Wilson, the erstwhile White Ferns trainer, is already laying out the neon vests and plastic cones for warm-ups.
Broadcast crew run through camera checks while batters from both sides wander across the field to the practice nets next door.
The White Ferns arrived ninety minutes before the scheduled start of play and set about rolling out backs and legs and shoulders, the diehard fans have already gathered at the gates.
The New Zealanders have been searching for belief. In Dunedin last week, they came up short, and, in Nelson two days before, they came up short again. So much of the talk has been about competing for the full match.
On Friday, the White Ferns had been the better side for three-quarters of both innings, but this is T20 cricket, not T15.
If there had been one message the team needed to hear, it was to stay in the fight. When Sophie Devine won the toss and decided to bat, it felt as if New Zealand were ready to start the fight instead.
That was certainly the way openers Suzie Bates and Bernie Bezuidenhout approached the powerplay overs, each looking to score early in the exchanges. It was not always elegant, but both saw out the fielding restrictions before Bates walked by a Sarah Glenn delivery and was stumped. Bezuidenhout, desperate for runs, cobbled together 34 of them before she hit one straight to Bess Heath.
New Zealand had 55 on the board when Sophie Devine joined Melie Kerr in the middle. By the time Sophie Devine clothed a lofted drive to Heather Knight, they had 154 with one ball remaining.
The 99-run partnership between Kerr and Devine – the second highest for any wicket in a T20 International for New Zealand – was exactly what the White Ferns had been asking for. Kerr was at her best accumulating runs and turning over the strike.
Devine clubbed bowlers back over their heads. There was a presence to their partnership, a premeditated posturing that has so often been missing in the side. They looked like two batters who owned all of Nelson.
At the break, the White Ferns would have had a right to feel confident. In the opening games of the series, it had been the bowlers who had had the best of it. If England were to chase 156 for victory, they would have to set a record for the highest T20 chase in New Zealand. Then again, they had won 17 of their last 20 matches batting second. In a nutshell, cricket has a statistic for anyone.
The crowd had grown throughout the afternoon. Hundreds of kids ran between parents on fold-out chairs and picnic blankets. There was a heady sense of hope among the gathered fans, many seeking shade under the trees along the top of the browned-off embankments.
When Sophia Dunkley was run out by Rosemary Mair in the second over, hope transformed into expectation. This was to be the White Ferns day, after all, the reward for showing up. Someone forgot to send Maia Bouchier the memo.
Tammy Beaumont was another who did not think this deserved to New Zealand's day. Between her and Bouchier, the New Zealand bowlers were sent to all corners. By the end of the powerplay, England had gone at ten runs per over and were just one wicket down. Beaumont finally went with the score at 94, and Maia Bouchier departed with England 29 runs short of victory.
Expectation had retreated, and in its place, hope had returned. Perhaps it is fair to say only some of that hope actually came back.
Belief. It was there on the bank in the eyes of every girl who dreamed of playing for the White Ferns. It was in the mind of Frankie McKay staring from the windows of the wee room below the commentary box. It was in the words of a local security guard as they wandered past the medics.
"They're going to win this," she said. I wondered if it was in the hearts of the 11 players wearing the fern on their shirt.
Heather Knight went for 10, and England needed 22 from 22. By all calculations and estimations, England had the game in the bag. Then Amy Jones was bowled by Melie Kerr and England needed 14 from 15.
When Sophie Devine stepped up to bowl the 19th over, England needed 11 from 12. Bess Heath tried to get the job done quickly and holed out to Maddy Green. England had gone from 126 for 2, to 147 for 6. Devine conceded just three runs off the over, leaving England 8 from home with 6 balls remaining.
"They're going to win this."
Three of us sit in the portacom below the commentary box in which Craig McMillan and Alex Hartley have been building to a crescendo. Jo Barta, our tireless production manager, can't watch. She is typing with the ferocity of a concert pianist. Frankie McKay absorbs everything happening all at once with a savant's brain.
Out in the middle, Sophie Devine hands the ball to Suzie Bates. England need 8 runs and the bowler between them and that target has bowled one over in the series. That's belief.
Bates comes in around the wicket and bowls Hollie Armitage. Five balls later, Charlie Dean is stumped. In between Bates holds her nerve, and at the end, England are three runs short. Their last 6 wickets fell of 25 runs, in just 29 balls.
They smiled afterwards, hugged, and laughed with each other.
It was one of those games that remind you how crazy T20 cricket can be and why it continues to grow in popularity. New Zealand had flipped the script on the English, but more importantly had shown they do believe in their game.
They signed autographs for the kids, who did not care at all about statistics. As the last of the fans left the Oval, wee Florence had a photo with the New Zealand captain. Sophie Devine asked her who her favourite White Fern was. She said she would have to think about it. Suzie Bates asked her if she played cricket.
She said she was thinking about it now.
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