New Zealand's resilience shines through as they defeat Dottin to secure their spot in the final

Kolkata: Deandra Dottin faced several close calls, as she kept narrowly escaping being caught out. On one occasion, Rosemary Mair had a chance to catch her at deep backward square, but the ball slipped through her fingers. Another time, Eden Carson missed a seemingly simple catch at the square-leg boundary. Despite the failed attempts by the fielders, Dottin continued to aim for clearing the midwicket boundary with her shots.

Till she finally did the first ball of the 16th over from Lea Tahuhu, clearing her front leg and clobbering the back of a length delivery for a six. Four balls later, another six, this time also over midwicket. Last ball, again, same region. Three sixes magically cut the asking rate from more than 11 to just over eight but Dottin wanted to finish the game. This time she tried to sweep Amelia Kerr, but got a thick top-edge to Fran Jonas at short fine-leg. Thirty-three off 22 balls, this time Dottin wasn’t lucky and neither were the West Indies.

Batting first, New Zealand made 128/9 and West Indies only managed 120/8 to lose by 8 runs. They will meet South Africa in the final.

Earlier, West Indies were sloppy in their catching but New Zealand were shocking. That was the biggest takeaway at the end of a sapping T20 World Cup semi-final where the run rate didn’t go above 6.5 runs per over in two innings. New Zealand were lucky, but also thoroughly combative to ensure their abysmal fielding didn’t dictate the outcome of the match. At least 20 short of the par target, they got Kerr (2/14) and Carson—who took 3/29—to make scoring difficult before Suzie Bates defended 15 in the last over to send them to their first T20 World Cup final since 2010. They now take on South Africa in the final on Sunday.

Barring the all-round Dottin (who also took 4/22), West Indies’ batting was all over the place. Not till Zaida James started hitting a couple of fours with Fletcher in her company did West Indies have any real chance of knocking off the rest of the runs but once Bates pegged back her leg-stump in the final over, West Indies were done.

Which would have been difficult to predict given how things stood at the break. Electing to bat, New Zealand were stalled in their tracks by the slowness of the Sharjah pitch before Karishma Ramharack bowled Suzie Bates with a fuller, straighter and quicker arm ball. New Zealand had added 48 by then, at less than run-a-ball, meaning opener Georgia Plimmer or No 3 Amelia Kerr didn’t have enough to consolidate on. The pressure told on them as both were dismissed in the space of four balls.

Those wickets brought Devine and Brooke Halliday together and that’s when the runs started flowing in. Between the 11th and 14th overs, New Zealand’s run rate rose to 9.75 from 5.4 in the first 10. It proved to be the key difference.