Australia Women Beat New Zealand Women by 2 Wickets — Perry's Fifty Survives a Late Wobble as Plimmer's 85* Wins Player of the Match in Defeat

World champions are allowed an untidy evening now and then, and Australia had one at North Sydney Oval. They dropped Georgia Plimmer twice, watched her and Maddy Green add an unbroken 127, and then, chasing 163 on a flat pitch, went from cruising at 102 for 2 at drinks to 145 for 7 in the 16th over. It took a Kim Garth square drive, struck with a calmness the rest of the innings had mislaid, to settle it.

For New Zealand, this was the first look at life after Sophie Devine, Suzie Bates and Lea Tahuhu, and it was a good deal more encouraging than the result alone suggests. New Zealand Women 162 for 2 (20 overs). Australia Women 165 for 8 (18.5 overs). Australia won by two wickets with seven balls remaining to lead the three-match series 1-0. The Player of the Match award went to the losing side, to Plimmer for a career-best 85 not out, and it is hard to argue with that.

The chase began badly: Georgia Voll was trapped lbw by Bree Illing's inswinger second ball, and lost the review on umpire's call. What followed was the best cricket Australia played all night. Ellyse Perry and Beth Mooney added 86 in 8.2 overs, the fifty stand coming up in 28 balls, and Australia had 57 in the powerplay. Mooney, who had taken her contact lenses out early in the innings, did not look like a batter short of vision, and she was well set on 38 when a loud lbw shout distracted her into a run that was never there; Flora Devonshire hit direct from short third. Perry reached her fifty from 27 balls with a straight drive and then, on 52, pulled a Jess Kerr long hop flat to deep backward square.

That was 102 for 3, and the next five wickets went for 57 runs. Ashleigh Gardner made 23 before Jess Kerr won an lbw on review; Georgia Wareham sliced to point; Annabel Sutherland holed out; Nicola Carey was run out in a mix-up. Captain Sophie Molineux hit two fours in an 11 from five balls and was bowled by Rosemary Mair attempting a lap sweep with four still wanted, and it was left to Garth to finish with a boundary through square. Australia played without Phoebe Litchfield, ruled out with a hip injury, and Tahlia McGrath, her replacement in the only change from the World Cup final side, made 6 not out from nine balls at the end.

The bowling was solid rather than sharp. Garth bowled Devonshire through the gate with a late-swinging inswinger in the third over, and Lucy Hamilton, preferred to Megan Schutt on her return from a hip injury, took a diving catch at fine leg to remove Melie Kerr. But Hamilton's two overs cost 23, and after Kerr's dismissal at 35 for 2 in the seventh over, Australia did not take another wicket.

New Zealand will feel they left runs out there. They were 29 for 1 after the powerplay and 70 for 2 at the halfway mark, and only once Plimmer and Green were set did the scoring move: the third-wicket hundred took 63 balls, and the team's 150 came up in the 19th over. The match report noted they rued not throwing the bat earlier, and with Australia finishing seven balls short of their target, another ten or fifteen in the middle overs might have been the match.

With the ball, they never stopped believing. Jess Kerr's 3 for 25 included the two key wickets of Perry and Gardner, Illing was dangerous with the new ball in only her 16th T20I, Devonshire's direct hit ran out Mooney, and Carey was run out in a mix-up. The one blemish was the captain's own spell: Melie Kerr's four overs cost 50, the most expensive figures of her career. The lesson from Sydney is less about talent, which this side plainly has, than tempo.

We weren't at the ground, so we go by the scorecard and ESPNcricinfo's report, which called the North Sydney Oval surface flat. The numbers agree: 327 runs for ten wickets, and the only batters who struggled to score were the ones who got out trying to force it. There was swing early for Illing and Garth, enough to bowl Devonshire and pin Voll, but once the ball softened the pitch offered little. Two reviews ended on umpire's call, Voll's lbw second ball among them, which says the new ball was doing just enough.

Plimmer had been dropped during New Zealand's disappointing T20 World Cup campaign, and arrived here with 55 T20Is behind her and a new opening partner in Devonshire. She started slowly, was missed by Mooney with a stumping chance on 15 and a catch on 39, and then shifted gears so smoothly that it was easy to forget the start. Her fifty came off 40 balls with nine fours; the next 35 came from 28. She finished unbeaten on 85 from 68, a career-best, with ten fours and a six. Losing-side awards are usually consolation prizes. This one felt more like a statement of intent from a batter who had a point to make and made it with her bat.

We have to begin with an error that matters more than any lean. Our fixture data listed this match as Australia Women v Bangladesh Women, and our preview was written about Bangladesh: Nigar Sultana as the visiting player to watch, a "BAN Women tour of AUS" framing, and a story about Bangladesh moving on from an ODI series. Bangladesh had played Australia in ODIs before this, but the T20I series is against New Zealand. The preview also named Alyssa Healy as captain and opener and Megan Schutt with the new ball; neither played, and Sophie Molineux led the side. That is a data mistake on our part, and we are sorry for it.

What survives? We called Australia "overwhelming favourites", and they did win, but a two-wicket finish with 145 for 7 on the board in the 16th over is not what overwhelming looks like. Our Australia player to watch, Ashleigh Gardner, made 23 from 17 and bowled one over for 12, a useful cameo but not a decisive one. Our line that "one dropped catch" could shift the balance turned out to be truer than we meant: Mooney's two misses off Plimmer nearly cost Australia the game. And we described North Sydney Oval as a true surface; on a flat pitch, that part held.

Australia Women lead the three-match T20I series 1-0. The second T20I is on Tuesday, October 20, and the third on Thursday, October 22. Australia will want a tidier performance in the field and fewer gifts in the chase, and may have Litchfield's fitness to consider; New Zealand know that a little more urgency in the middle overs could turn their best performance of the post-Devine era into a series-levelling win.