Australia v New Zealand T20Is: All you need to know

Series facts

Schedule

March 21 (12.45pm AEDT): First T20I, Eden Park, Auckland

 

March 23 (12.45pm AEDT): Second T20I, Bay Oval, Tauranga

 

March 26 (12.45pm AEDT): Third T20I, Sky Stadium, Wellington

 

All three matches are double headers alongside Black Caps v Pakistan

How to watch or listen in Australia: Fox Cricket and Kayo Sports 

Live scores: Match Centre

Highlights, news and reactions after the match: cricket.com.au and the CA Live app

Tickets: Cricket New Zealand

The squads

Australia: Tahlia McGrath (c), Ashleigh Gardner (vc), Darcie Brown, Nicole Faltum, Kim Garth, Grace Harris, Alana King, Phoebe Litchfield, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Voll, Georgia Wareham

Regular captain Alyssa Healy will be skips this series as she prioritises her rehab after sustaining a foot injury during the Ashes. Tahlia McGrath will captain the side in her absence after leading the Aussies to a 3-0 sweep in the T20 leg of the Ashes series.

Healy has been replaced by fellow wicketkeeper-batter Nicole Faltum in the squad, who has been rewarded for her a career-best WBBL season with a maiden international call-up. However, Beth Mooney is likely to continue with the gloves, meaning Faltum's opportunity could be limited.

Australia have gone with a stable squad otherwise, with Sophie Molineux (knee surgery) and Tayla Vlaeminck (shoulder) still unavailable as they recover from their respective injuries. 

New Zealand: Suzie Bates (c), Eden Carson, Sophie Devine, Maddy Green, Brooke Halliday, Polly Inglis, Bella James, Fran Jonas, Jess Kerr, Melie Kerr, Rosemary Mair, Georgia Plimmer, Lea Tahuhu

The hosts have been boosted by the returns of star allrounders Sophie Devine and Melie Kerr, as well as seamer Lea Tahuhu, after the trio missed the White Ferns 1-1 drawn series with Sri Lanka.

Veteran Suzie Bates continues as interim captain after Devine stepped down as New Zealand's T20 skipper following last year's T20 World Cup.

Batter Bella James is a potential debutant in the Kiwi squad after overcoming a quad strain that ruled her out of the ODI and T20I series against Sri Lanka, while Polly Inglis, who made her international debut in both white-ball formats against Sri Lanka, retains her place with wicketkeeper-batter Izzy Gaze injured.

Form Guide

Past 10 matches, most recent first. W: win, L: loss, N: no result   

Australia: WWWLWWWWWW

Australia were dominant in their clean sweep of England in the Ashes T20Is in January, winning two of the three games by sizeable margins, with their opponents coming close only in a rain-affected game in Canberra that the hosts won by six runs under the DLS method.

That was the six-time T20 World Cup winners' first assignment in the shortest format since their shock defeat to South Africa in the semi-final of the 2024 edition of the tournament in October. With only nine more T20Is on their calendar ahead of the next T20 World Cup, the Aussies will look to make the most of the game time to work towards their bid to win back the trophy next year.

Eleven of the squad members will be flying in fresh from their Women's Premier League stint in India, where Ellyse Perry and Ashleigh Gardner enjoyed successful seasons, while Beth Mooney and Georgia Voll both came close to scoring centuries.

New Zealand: NWLWWWWLWL

The White Ferns have had a remarkable change in their fortunes since they last faced Australia in a T20 series. Their three-nil defeat in Queensland in September last year saw them plummet to 10 consecutive losses in the shortest format, only to go on to become the world champions a month later.

New Zealand went to the T20 World Cup in the UAE with not many favouring them to even make it out of a tough group that also featured Australia and India. The only team they lost to on their way to the trophy was Australia.

Shortly before the Aussies landed in Auckland, the White Ferns wrapped-up a three-match T20 series against Sri Lanka. Although the home side would have expected a better result than a 1-1 tie, they would take heart from the fact that some of their key players weren't available and that they had got off to a strong start in the final game before it was abandoned due to rain.

Players to watch

Georgia Voll will be looking to make the most of another opportunity to open the innings for Australia in Alyssa Healy's absence. After a sensational ODI debut series against India in December, she came into the T20I side in the Ashes as the Australian skipper sat out due to injury.

Voll managed 49 runs across three games in that assignment, but she has travelled to New Zealand fresh from a whirlwind week in India, where she was called in by the UP Warriorz mid-way through the Women's Premier League (WPL) season to replace Sri Lankan captain Chamari Athapaththu, who had to leave for international duties. The 21-year-old bounced back from a duck in her first game to score 55 off 33 in the next before finishing with the joint-highest score in the league's history – stranded on 99 not out at the end of the innings.

If recent encounters are anything to go by, Annabel Sutherland has developed a liking for playing against the White Ferns and in New Zealand. The allrounder was the player of the match in both completed ODIs on the tour across the Tasman Sea in December, scoring a century in the first and taking 3-39 to go with a score of 42 off 43 in the second.

She was equally impressive with the ball in the T20 World Cup game against the eventual champions, registering figures of 3-21. The Belinda Clark Medallist for 2024-25 will be keen to end the season on a high with another great all-round outing.

New Zealand have been boosted by Georgia Plimmer's return to cricket after she missed out on a major part of the summer due to a groin injury sustained in India right after the T20 World Cup.

The top-order batter was the side's second-highest run-scorer in the successful campaign in the UAE, where she amassed 150 runs across six innings. Plimmer scored an ODI century against Sri Lanka in her first series back earlier this month. While she got out for single digits in the first two T20Is against the same opposition, she was going strong on 46 off 37 and having already cleared the rope twice when play was abandoned in the final game.

Local conditions

Rapid stats

• Australia are unbeaten in their last four multi-game bilateral women's T20I series against New Zealand but the only drawn series in that span was the last time these side met in New Zealand (March-April 2021). The White Ferns had won three previous series prior to that span.
  
  
• New Zealand are winless in their last six multi-game bilateral women's T20I series, their longest winless run in the history of the format. They haven't won a series at home since December 2022 (3-0 v Bangladesh).
  
  
• Australia have won their last six multi-game bilateral women's T20I series, their longest winning run in the format. They have won their last three series in that span by a scoreline of 3-0.
  
  
• This will be the first women's T20I between these sides at Eden Park. New Zealand have split their two previous fixtures at the venue – a four-wicket win against India in February 2019 and a 10-run loss against England in February 2012.
  
  
• Australia have recorded a collective batting strike rate of at least 135 in two of their last three women's T20Is; they had failed to reach that mark in 10 prior matches in the format.
  
  
• New Zealand bowlers have induced a play-and-miss on over 10 per cent of deliveries in each of their last six women's T20Is.
  
  
• Beth Mooney (Australia) has scored 707 runs at an average of 47.1 in women's T20Is since the start of 2024, the best average of any player who has scored more than 360 runs. She has scored 257 runs at an average of 85.7 in her last four innings in the format.

• Suzie Bates (New Zealand) has scored 1075 runs against Australia in women's T20Is, 232 more than any other player. She has scored 106 runs at an average of 26.5 in her last four matches against Australia.
  
  
• Megan Schutt (149 for Australia) needs one more wicket to become the first bowler to take 150 wickets in women's T20Is. She took 3-3 in a player of the match performance in her last match against New Zealand (October 8, 2024).
  
  
• Georgia Plimmer (448) needs 52 more runs to become the 11th player to score 2000 runs for New Zealand in women's T20Is. Only against Sri Lanka (124) has she scored more runs than against Australia (94).

CommBank T20I tour of New Zealand

Australia T20 squad: Tahlia McGrath (c), Ashleigh Gardner (vc), Darcie Brown, Nicole Faltum, Kim Garth, Grace Harris, Alana King, Phoebe Litchfield, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Voll, Georgia Wareham

First T20 | March 21: Eden Park, Auckland

Second T20 | March 23: Bay Oval, Tauranga

Third T20 | March 26: Sky Stadium, Wellington

All games starting at 12:45pm AEDT, 2:45pm NZDT