Indian women’s cricket team which is repeated captained by the veteran Harmanpreet Kaur, will kick off their ICC Women’s T20 World Cup with a game against New Zealand at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium in Dubai on Saturday.
It has been the last few years that India has come closer to being the foremost challenger against the Great Australia team. They have never won the championship and have played one final which was in 2020. This year, pleasingly, they are among the teams expected to cut the last four on the tournament as well.
New Zealand who were second place in the first two tournament editions have regressed in recent times. And the present performance did not instil any convincing merit in them making it out of the pool, which features Australia the for three time world champions, along with India. India vs New Zealand T20 stats:
In many of the matches played over the years between India and New Zealand, the Kiwis have performed better. Out of the 13 tie played between both Teames, New Zealand won nine of those games. India has only been able to defeat them on four occasions.
However, the two nations’s last encounter was in February 2022, which was won by New Zealand by 18 runs. So they will be clashing after two and half years since their last showdown. In the time, a lot has changed.
IND vs NZ in T20Is: Matches 13 | NZ won 9 | IND won 4
2024 Form Guide
India: M 16 | W 11 | L 4 | NR 1
India seems to be in their best season yet winning 11 of the 16 T20I matches played by December 2024. The team has lost only four games and only one against South Africa remains postponed. Able to take out teams like Australia, Bangladesh, South Africa, Pakistan, USE, and Nepal. In the last four matches, they have lost to Australia (twice), South Africa, and Sri Lanka.
However, the Indian players last stepped into the small pitch to face the t20s in World Cup, after losing to Sri Lanka in the finals of the Asia cup, in July this year.
New Zealand: M 13 | W 1 | L 12
This is the worst form that New Zealand have been in, in any year. So far they have managed only 1 win in 2024 after playing 13 T20s and that was against England in March that year. In terms of self-belief they are very low and are coming into this tournament having lost ten straight games.
The new zealand squad would be finding it hard to cause an upset against the two time finalists especially in their current form.
