New Zealand captain was verging on tears after her side was knocked out of the World Cup, leaving her with just one game left in her ODI career
Sruthi Ravindranath24-Oct-20254:10
Review – India’s stellar batting show
Sophie Devine’s press conference after New Zealand’s loss to India was in stark contrast to the one on the eve of the match.This was an emotional version of Devine – her team had just been knocked out of the ODI World Cup, and she is set to retire from the format on Sunday. Reflecting on New Zealand’s early exit, she spoke of disappointment but also of pride, especially for the younger players coming through.”I don’t really want to think too much about it because I probably get quite emotional around it,” Devine said. “But the way those girls went out there today… I’m incredibly proud of where this team’s going. When you think about the likes of Izzy [Gaze], Brooke [Halliday], Melie Kerr, Eden Carson, the way that they’re starting to really grow into themselves, it certainly makes it easier when I do step away after the next game, not before.”It is sort of [you feel] a bit like a proud mother, you have been involved in this side at New Zealand cricket for so long that you’re so invested. I’m going to go through a few different emotions over the next couple of days, but we’ll take time to reflect on that.”Related
-
Mandhana, Rawal, Rodrigues flex batting muscle in India's statement win
-
Rawal and Mandhana tons seal India's semi-final spot
-
'Thanks for not saying I'm old' – Devine utterly chill ahead of make-it-or-break-it game against India
-
Stats – Mandhana, Rawal tear up the record book
It had been a must-win game for New Zealand against hosts India, but they faltered in both halves. After choosing to bowl, they managed to keep India’s openers quiet early but soon lost control. A DLS-adjusted target of 325 in 44 overs left them chasing the game from the start. Despite half-centuries from Halliday and Gaze, they never quite kept up with the asking rate.”It’s hard. After any [game], you can dissect every single ball,” she said. “I thought we were outstanding with the ball in the powerplay. It’s always hard when you get a partnership of 200 plus, you’re going to be under pressure. I guess for the Indian line-up, they were able to come out and swing pretty freely and take the game on and they probably got a few too many.”We spoke about things we needed to try and stay as close to the run rate as possible. And it’s hard because it jumps so quickly here. So, they’re all learnings for us. It’s frustrating and it’s gutting and it’s disappointing to lose any game of cricket, but especially when we still had a chance of making it through to this World Cup’s semi-finals.”Devine, whose international career has spanned nearly two decades, also reflected on the mental side of leadership, mainly the challenge of staying positive in the face of heartbreak.
“And that’s what sucks about sports sometimes, is you can work harder than anyone in the world, you can do all the right things, but it doesn’t guarantee your results out there when it matters. So that’s probably going to be the hardest pill to swallow about this campaign.”Sophie Devine on New Zealand’s exit from the World Cup
“I think the really important thing for me is to be authentic, and not just for me or my group, but for you guys as well,” she said. “I think sometimes people forget that we’re human beings and that we do have emotions. We’re not just robots out there that go and play and don’t have feelings and we don’t feel the criticism and we don’t feel the hurt. The words that are said about us, expectations.”It’s really important to remember that, but also we’ve got to own up to it. It’s the profession we’re in. Unfortunately, this right now is a bloody tough thing for me to do. But I also want to front up and still be really proud of what this group’s been able to achieve. But I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it sucks. Losing press conferences are probably the hardest ones to do, especially when you’ve been knocked out of a tournament. At the end of the day, there’s not too much positive words I could probably say about it, unfortunately. But that is what it is.”New Zealand had opted to bowl first on a hot and humid day in Navi Mumbai, a decision Devine defended. She said that the call had been made with rain on the radar and a potential DLS scenario in mind.”It rained, didn’t it? The game got altered,” Devine said. “In cricket with Duckworth-Lewis you want to bat second so you know what you’re chasing. And again, hindsight’s a brilliant thing, isn’t it? If we’d have won that game, would the same question have been asked? I think we had our reasons to. We obviously saw that the weather was going to come in at some stage. How much? Again, you can’t control that. But I don’t think we regret that decision. We’ve known the troubles that India have had lately of chasing down totals. In hindsight maybe we should have batted first. Would it have changed the result? I don’t know.”New Zealand’s campaign had begun with two defeats in three games, before rain disruptions in Colombo added to their woes with two of their fixtures washed out. As a result, they have just one win in a tournament where number of wins take precedence over net run rate to make the semi-final. When asked how she would process the campaign after so much preparation, Devine’s voice cracked.”I thought I was going to get through this press conference without crying,” she said. “It’s tough, isn’t it? Because I know I’ve spoken about the weather, the weather’s followed us, jokes have been made about it. At the end of the day, you just want the opportunity to play cricket. Unfortunately, we had fate in our hands. We lost the first two games, put ourselves under pressure. We lost today. So, it’s hard to reflect when nearly half your games have had weather impacted by it. But we haven’t been good enough. And that’s really tough because the work that this group’s put in over the last 12 months has been phenomenal.”And that’s what sucks about sports sometimes, is you can work harder than anyone in the world, you can do all the right things, but it doesn’t guarantee your results out there when it matters. So that’s probably going to be the hardest pill to swallow about this campaign. I’m not sure what else we could have done as a group to be better prepared, to be fitter, to be more connected, I don’t know. But we’ve got to dissect it and figure out where we went wrong and where we can improve. It sucks. Unfortunately, there’s not much other ways to describe it.”Devine, however, finished in typical fashion. With their final league game left against England on Sunday she hoped her team would bow out with pride.”The work that this group’s put in, no one deserves anything,” she said. “Not just in cricket, but in life. Sometimes you wish that the good guys got the results. We’ll pull ourselves up, we’ll dust ourselves off, and we’ll go bloody hard at these English people and give them a good run for their money. And hopefully we like everything out there on Sunday and we can leave with our heads held really high.”