Women’s T20 World Cup 2026: Melie Kerr laments ‘disappointing campaign’ for defending champions NZ

New Zealand Women’s captain Melie Kerr lamented her side’s disappointing campaign in the 2026 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, after their nine-wicket loss to England Women at the Oval.

The White Ferns, entering as defending champions, were beaten by the West Indies and Sri Lanka in their first two games, leaving their semi-final chances hanging by a thread. Wins against Scotland and Ireland followed, but they were handed a lifeline after Ireland beat the West Indies in their final game. But those hopes were quickly put to bed by the hosts, who sealed a dominant nine-wicket win.

“I think we are the first to recognise it’s been a disappointing campaign for us. Today we had the opportunity to give ourselves a chance to go through to the semis, and we were outplayed tonight. There were moments with the bat I thought we were great, and then we lost a few wickets quickly. Danni [Wyatt-Hodge] played beautifully, but I think we offered too much width, and yeah, we’re on the wrong side, and beaten by a good England side,” Kerr said in her press conference after the game, as reported by cricinfo.

One area New Zealand struggled with was their catching. They put down 12 chances during their campaign, with nine of those in the first two matches. Kerr lamented the missed chances and further emphasised the lack of difference-makers with the bat. Izzy Sharp’s 62 against Scotland was the only half-century by a New Zealand batter in the tournament.

“When I look back to our first two games, catchers win matches, and unfortunately we couldn’t hold on to them. Sitting here right now, if I had to think of three things simply to get better at, it’s obviously our catching, being able to hold the stumps more with the ball, and we posted competitive totals, but I think not enough players that got in kicked on, the likes of myself getting 40 [42] today. I think when you do that, you’ve got to kick on, which other teams have done well with the likes of Danni and Marizanne Kapp to win that game the other day,” Kerr said.

‘Easy to be a good captain when you’re winning games’ – Kerr on first major captaincy experience

This was Kerr’s first major assignment as captain of the side, taking over from the legendary Sophie Devine in February this year. She had a stellar start to life in leadership, with seven wins in eight matches, but has been able to manage just three wins in her next eight games, which includes a three-match T20I series against England. She shared that her biggest learning from the tournament was about how to keep the team moving forward despite results not being in their favour.

“It hasn’t been necessarily an easy run, but I think one thing about this group is we always come together, and I think it’s easy to be a good captain when you’re winning games and things are going good. So for me it shows your character during losses, how you can try and lift a team and keep everyone up when you know things aren’t going to plan,” she said.

There’s hopefully going to be times in the future where it is easier to lead because we’re winning games, but the learning is I think you’ve got to stay positive, you’ve got to keep your body language up. You can recognise disappointment, but you’ve got to find the way to keep the group together and keep moving forward with the same goal in mind,” she added.

The White Ferns’ skipper hopes that her team will be able to learn from this campaign and move forward to perform better in the future.

“I remember my first World Cup was over here in 2017 and again we underperformed as a side, but you learn so much from loss and defeat and disappointment. Although it’s hard in this moment and it really sucks for the group, I hope that it only is going to make everyone stronger and those young girls will be able to pull on this in future tournaments,” she concluded.

The game was also the last international appearance for the White Ferns’ experienced trio of Devine, Suzie Bates and Lea Tahuhu.