- Updates from the opening match at Allan Border Field
- Any thoughts? Email or tweet @collinsadam
13th over: Australia 81-3 (Haynes 23, Gardner 21) Eight more here after Gardner backs herself to to take Kerr with the spin up and over cover, clearing the fielder on the circle and earning a boundary for taking the risk. The stand is now 35 from 28.
12th over: Australia 73-3 (Haynes 22, Gardner 14) Mair can’t give Haynes something outside leg stump, tucked away with ease given fine leg is inside the circle. With risk-free singles from every other ball, and a wide in there too, this becomes the best Australian over so far, with ten taken from it. The foundation looks to be laid.
“Hey Adam.” Hello, Tanya Wintringham. “Am half way through the new pod and it’s a beautiful tribute to Deano. You and Geoff have written great pieces over the last couple of days about him. You must be shattered - I can’t believe you’re live-blogging this as well as everything else.” Thank you. He was so important.
“As I was listening to the pod I was wondering who my Deano equivalent was (I have about ten to twelve years on you I think) and the best I could come up with was Martin Crowe - completely different from what came before, spectacularly talented but not always consistent, always thinking about the game and always his own person, for good or ill. It broke my heart when his cancer became terminal and he died a few months or so later. It’s great to have cricket on the telly again here - New Zealand cricket in their wisdom has split the broadcasting rights so anyone who wants to watch New Zealand teams play has to have both a Sky tv sub and a Spark Sports sub (online only). Sigh. Anyway - I hope you have had a chance to see your girls and Winnie continues to bring you and Rach joy.”
11th over: Australia 63-3 (Haynes 16, Gardner 11) Jensen returns for her second over and Gardner doesn’t mind that, smashing the seamer through cover for her second boundary. Good early signs for one of the hardest hitters in the game. She then retains strike with a controlled single down the ground - good batting, that. Meanwhile, Haynes, is ticking over nicely too, up to 16 from 13 deliveries.
10th over: Australia 56-3 (Haynes 15, Gardner 5) Kerr has started well here, banking up three dots in a row to Gardner in this her second over before the new batter to the crease lifts her out to the sweeper at backward square leg. Haynes finishes with a boundary though, beating Satterthwaite at deep square leg with a well-timed sweep shot, making contact with the ball with one hand off the bat.
9th over: Australia 50-3 (Haynes 10, Gardner 4) It is Gardner in at No5 and she’s off the mark with a cut boundary first ball. Lanning also found the rope, out at midwicket, before falling. Eight runs then, but that all-important wicket too.
Tahuhu is pumped as she removes Australia's skipper Lanning for 24.
Live #AUSvNZ: https://t.co/IX4FvNRXx7pic.twitter.com/wyxf1J8yra
Tahuhu wins a little feather from Lanning! In that channel outside the off-stump, the skipper pushed forward but played the wrong line, taken by the ‘keeper. Another big moment early on here, the No3 joining Healy and Mooney back in the sheds. Will Gardner come in now as named, or will they hold her back?
8th over: Australia 42-2 (Lanning 20, Haynes 10) Amelia Kerr, one of the most compelling bowlers in the modern game, to send down her first over of wrist-spin. She turns it a mile and can get it going both ways. Lanning and Haynes play her watchfully to begin her spell here, collecting five risk-free runs to the sweepers.
7th over: Australia 37-2 (Lanning 16, Haynes 9) Sure enough, the first over after the power play is a tidy one - so often the case in T20 cricket when the field goes out. Sophie Devine has 1/6 from her two overs so far. And now it’s time for spin.
This is Sophie Devine's 25th T20I wicket against Australia, the most by any bowler v AUS in women's T20Is.#AUSvNZhttps://t.co/Uoykssooi0https://t.co/4ocHOCNssO
6th over: Australia 33-2 (Lanning 14, Haynes 7) Edge, four! Had this been a red-ball fixture, Haynes would have been in strife there - a nice catchable height - but instead it runs away to the rope. But just three further singles from the Mair over to complete a power play the visitors will be most pleased with.
An important moment before the game, detailed by Dan Brettig over at Cricinfo.
With a public display to take place before the first home game by an Aust team since the BLM movement emerged, Meg Lanning's team hope to shine light on more than 400 Aboriginal deaths in police custody since 1991 #AUSvNZhttps://t.co/yWlfEha6mT
5th over: Australia 26-2 (Lanning 12, Haynes 1) Haynes and Lanning know all about patch-up jobs, and they’re going to have to draw on that experience now with both of Australia’s dependable openers gone inside five overs. The left-hander is off the mark with a nice little steer but just two runs off Devine, the wicket too. Excellent.
Here come the White Ferns! Devine brings herself into the attack and is into the book in the best possible way by winning a poor shot from Healy, nursing a short ball out towards cover, into the safe hands of Suzie Bates. That’s big.
4th over: Australia 24-1 (Healy 6, Lanning 12) Oooh, you cannot put down Meg Lanning early on and that’s precisely what Perkins has done at cover. It was an off-pace deliver from Jensen, the Aussie superstar playing a fraction early - spitting away from the outside slither of her blade - but the low chance wasn’t pouched. Sure enough, Healy punched the bruise later in the over to strike her first boundary, clipping up and over square leg into the gap without any risk at all. Shot.
3rd over: Australia 18-1 (Healy 2, Lanning 11) The Australian skipper is out of the blocks, taking advantage of Tahuhu’s extra bounce to pull her with authority out to the rope then clipping the next delivery through midwicket - back to back fours.
2nd over: Australia 7-1 (Healy 2, Lanning 0) Mair isn’t quite on the money to Lanning to begin after picking up Mooney mid-over, spraying down leg then letting her get off strike via a leg bye, but a successful over is a successful over.
First blood to New Zealand.
Live #AUSvNZ: https://t.co/IX4FvNRXx7pic.twitter.com/2r5edjgmIo
Mooney tries to go over cover but picks out Green inside the circle! That’s a huge breakthrough for the visitors, getting rid of the No1 ranked player in the world.
1st over: Australia 3-0 (Healy 1, Mooney 1) Good start from Tahuhu, getting through the first power play over conceding just a couple of singles - Healy with a clip, then Mooney a steer. She pushed one down the legside too, but just three runs off it.
We are away. Lea Tahuhu to bowl the first over, Alyssa Healy there with Beth Mooney - the best opening partnership in the world. Buckle up! PLAY!
National Anthems following the Dean Jones tribute on the field. God Defend New Zealand to begin - what a tune. It’s wonderful to see some fans permitted in the ground today as well, now belting out Advance Australia Fair. We’re ready to roll.
There will be a minute’s silence before play to honour Dean Jones. Geoff Lemon and I have both written words of thanks and tribute, as well as recording an emotional podcast last night. My formal obituary for Deano is in today’s paper:
Related: Dean Jones obituary | Adam Collins
“This is the moment we have been waiting six months for,” says Sophie Devine at the toss (which we are seeing now that the broadcast has started on telly in the UK). Meg Lanning is asked if there are any changes to the team that won the World Cup and, in her own blunt style, encourages us to read her team sheet. She did confirm that Ellyse Perry, who suffered a serious shoulder injury against New Zeland in that tournament, wiping her out of the semi and the final, is not yet ready for action.
As we wait for play to begin, check out our columnist Megan Schutt’s thoughts on returning to the game after months away, albeit without saliva on the ball.
Related: Surreal and a little bit scary: cricket returns to Australia in the Covid era | Megan Schutt
New Zealand: Suzie Bates, Sophie Devine (c), Maddy Green, Amy Satterthwaite, Katey Martin (wk), Amelia Kerr, Hayley Jensen, Lauren Down, Katie Perkins, Rosemary Mair, Lea Tahuhu.
Lauren Down, an experienced right-handed batter, gets an opportunity to take on the best attack the world after missing out during the World Cup.
Australia: Alyssa Healy (wk), Beth Mooney, Meg Lanning (c), Rachael Haynes, Ash Gardner, Sophie Molineux, Nicola Carey, Jess Jonassen, Georgia Wareham, Megan Schutt, Delissa Kimmince.
So, an unchanged XI to the team that won the World Cup Final. Consistent as ever.
Teams as named in a tick.
Hello and welcome to the First T20 International between Australia and New Zealand! It feels so good to say that after women’s cricket went into hibernation to a far more acute extent than it was for the men when Covid-19 really let rip just days after the momentous World Cup Final at the MCG on the 8th of March - International Women’s Day - with some 87,000 spectators in attendance.
But after so much bad news, so many tours cancelled, these old Trans -Tasman rivals are preparing to take each other on six times in the space of a couple of weeks to start the southern domestic summer, coincidentally on the afternoon that the AFL Grand Final would have been held had the world not changed so dramatically.