Sophie Devine: White Fern on the team's history-making performance against the West Indies

The White Ferns are through to the final of the T20 World Cup in the UAE after beating the West Indies by eight runs in Sharjah. 

After tallying 128 for nine, New Zealand restricted the Windies to 120 for eight. 

Off-spinner Eden Carson was Player of the Match with bowling figures of 3 for 29. 

D'Arcy caught up with Sophie Devine to review their history-making performance. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the All Sport Breakfast podcast with Darcy
Waldegrave from News talks'b.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Time for celebration to a degree with the White Ferns
have managed a semi final victory over top of the
West Indies. Sophie Divine, that joins us now and I
say with the pause there's still a final to be done,
but you must be ecstatic with the way that your
team managed to pull their way through and get that
when it certainly wasn't simple going, was it, Sophie.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Divine, No thanks Evans, Yeah, look shit, we made it. Sorry,
a bit tough on ourselves, but you know, to find
a way through and to win against the side that
was really dangerous and had you know, played extremely well
against it as strong England side leading into this. Yeah,
just bloody proud. But now it certainly feels like it's
only business half done. So big match us to come

(00:54):
and that's what the focus will be on Aster. We
celebrate to night success.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah, elation in the faces of the players, but definitely
tens are the fact that you go home now without
that title. That's all been fin out, So how do
you calm your team now you've got a lot of
older heads, there a lot of experience there and presuming
you'll be leaning on them to go, let's not get
too carried away.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Oh absolutely, And that's something that we've spoken about throughout
this tournament, is trying to keep our emotions in check.
That fre it can be a bit of a roller
coaster ride, and if you're riding the highs and lows,
you're going to exhaust yourself. And it's tough enough with
the heat out here, let alone sort of riding that way.
So we will, we'll celebrate this success and we'll have
discussions around absorbing what's going to be a big day
for us. It's our first final and I think close

(01:35):
to fifteen years, so it is going to be different.
We need to address that that it's not any old game,
but also the end of the day, it's two teams
playing a game of cricket out with a couple of
sticks the other end of a pitch. So you know,
we're going to keep doing what we've been doing and
deck ourselves in.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
We've talked about a number of occasions the ability to
turn this team around and I suppose transfer the power
from the older heads to the new score and was
looking like it's maybe a little beyond the side, but
you've seed stick to process. We think what we're doing
is correct playing the vets come through, and I think
the contribution from the more senior players and that passing
of the bat on, and we've seen it now today

(02:12):
some of these younger players have really stood up through
this tournament.

Speaker 3 (02:15):
Oh absolutely, and it gives me a great joy to,
I guess, prove those people wrong that were sort of
slamming us in terms of, you know, not only the
younger players but also the more experienced lot too in
terms of what are we're doing. We need to out
with the old sort of in with a new. But
we know the strength of this group and we knew
I guess the abilities that we had here. It was
just about sticking with them and you know, just believing

(02:36):
in ourselves. And that's what's been probably most pleasing is
to get a bit of reward finally after a long twelve, eighteen,
even twenty four months. We results haven't necessarily gone our way,
but we have. We've stuck with our process. We've stuck
with how we believe we can play cricket and win
games of cricket, and to now be in a World
Cup final. Hopefully it sort of signals to a lot
of people that, you know, what we've been doing is

(02:58):
the right thing.

Speaker 2 (02:58):
And so v got off to a crazy start Baits
and Plumber and Plumber has been one of the standout
players of recent times for the way they started, although
it got a bit dicey after they were removed. So again,
great start and that's something you need to carry on
with come Sunday mornings, yell in time.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
Yeah, absolutely, I think I think a lot of teams
have sort of struggled once you get out the powerplay,
but your field spreads and past generally seems to be
taken off and on these workts there are such slower
it can be pretty tough going. But we've got to
find ways to continue to keep that run rate going.
We've spoken a lot as a group about being busy
at the crease, about trying to score from as many
balls as possible, and unfortunately, you know, we lost a

(03:37):
couple of wickets and we lost a bit of momentum.
But I thought, you know, the way Brooke calla Day
came in and had real intent with her shot making
and took the game on that sort of kick started
us again and any way as he Gays was able
to finish it with a couple of laps and pedals
and the way they ran between the wickets as well,
that's something that's been massive with this groups as we
want everyone to see from the outside the effort they
were putting in, you know, running between the workts, pushing

(03:59):
every run as hard as we can because you just
never know when that one extra run might come and
come in handy. So yeah, look, certainly a continual work
on for us, but we know if people fire and
we lay that platform that we can hopefully score in
our phones through our bowlders to defend.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
It's probably fair so be divine to look at the
catching because you almost drop the game with some of
the catches that went down that I would suggest weren't
exactly the hardest line under pressure they can be. That
would have been a point of concern for everybody concerned.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Are well, yeah, lok, you did right. Obviously you never
want to drop catches, but no one never sets out
to drop them. But there's a say pressure can do
funny things. And look, I bet the players had to
catch those opportunities and they come come around next time,
but there'll be something we've addressed. I actually think our
building has been one of the standouts for this tournament
is the energy and effort that everyone's put in. Yes,
you know, we dropped a couple of catches today, but

(04:54):
tomorrow or sorry, Sunday is going to be a new
day and we want to people to be bringing just
their energy and enthusiasm in the field, the effort that
you know we can move on. So that'll be a
big thing for us as parking this game, take the
learnings what we can, and then starting again on Sunday.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
Geez Dalton was just about the interview, wasn't she She
took a whole pile of workets and then she came
on and started smiting runs all over the place, and
again I talk them for relief when she eventually departed
thirty three off twenty two three six is you'll have
been thinking, Okay, this is now within our hands.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Well absolutely, I think we all know the threat that
she poses their ability to clear the rope, and I
mean it's not just clearing the rope that's gone into
the stands sort of thing. So we knew she was
a big with especially after I guess we got through
it a bit of their top order and yeah, absolutely,
I mean once she was out, you sort of do
breathe a sigh of relief, but you just never know.
With cricket, it's such a funny, sickle game that you

(05:48):
can never really fully count on you count on it.
So you know, the way that we're able to finish,
Theo's obviously stepping up with a clutch over at the
end there to close it out. Yeah, I'm certainly probably
a bit of relief, but yeah, just really proud of
this group.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
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