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On Friday, October 4, the White Ferns kick-started their T20 World Cup campaign in Dubai with a huge win of 58 runs and two crucial contributors to the win apart from the obvious suspects like Sophie Devine and Rosemary Mair were the young sensations, Georgia Plimmer and Eden Carson.
After winning the toss and batting first where many suspected dew in the second innings, the focus with the bat for the White Ferns was on the 2004-born, Georgia Plimmer who is trying to find her feet in the international cricket started off New Zealand’s campaign with a bang as she went hammer and tongs against Indian bowling, especially Deepti Sharma and hit her 16 runs in the third over.
With her intent, she helped her team to get a score of 55 in the powerplay which happened to be the highest score that India had conceded in a T20 World Cup powerplay.
In her 23-ball stay, the Wellington-born prodigy almost scored at a strike rate of 150 which set up the foundation for someone like Sophie Devine to go full throttle from the word go to finish the innings on a high.
After being fast-tracked to international cricket at just 18, she didn’t do much to show in the record books but what everyone around her had seen her doing in the U19 T20 career in 2022/23 was enough for her to get a long rope to succeed.
Georgia Plimmer had averaged 51.66 at a strike rate of 143.51 in the age group cricket.
This World Cup could well and truly be her breakout season while NZ will hope for more such ballistic starts from the right-handed batter which would help them to psychologically destabilize the opponents.
The other crucial cog in the Kiwi side in their win over India was the 23-year-old off-spinner from Otago, Eden Carson.
While opening the bowling from an end alongside Jess Kerr, Carson got rid of the dangerous Shafali Verma on the very first ball of her spell, catching her off her own bowling on a tossed up delivery on the middle and leg which Verma mishit back to her.
After having her end changed by the skipper, she returned with the ball in the fifth over and yet again gave her team a breakthrough, dismissing the other Indian opener, Smriti Mandhana as the southpaw tried to attack her but eventually just finding Maddy Green on the long on.
Whilst conceding at the rate of 8.50, she managed to send both the Indian openers back to the hut fairly cheaply which caused some panic from which the Indian side didn’t recover at all.
In her young career, Eden Carson has already shown a lot of promise right from the age of 17 when she made her debut for Otago Sparks in 2018. At just 21, she was also rewarded with Phyl Blackler Cup for her bowling excellence in NZC’s annual awards in 2022 for picking 33 wickets across the white ball formats.
The Phyl Blackler Cup is the trophy given to the most outstanding cricketer from the Canterbury region.
In her 2-year international career, she has already helped NZ to the Commonwealth Games Bronze Medal in the last edition and was NZ’s standout performer in the 2023 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup with 6 wickers and an incredible catch of Alyssa Healy in the tournament opener.
Alongside her 32 T20I wickets, her performance in the Women’s Super Smash where she has taken 56 wickets at an average of just 19 and a healthy economy rate of just over 6 rpo also makes her one of the brightest hopes for the White Ferns to win their first T20 World Cup in UAE.
