The New Zealand women's cricket team played their first Test match in 1935, when they lost to England. Since then they have only won two Tests, once against Australia, and once against South Africa.
Their greatest success in one-day cricket was when they won the 2000 World Cup under captain Emily Drumm. In a hotly contested final, they scored 184 to narrowly beat Australia by four runs, Australia being all out for 180.
They also play in the annual Rose Bowl series against Australia. On a tour to England in 2004, they played the first ever Twenty20 international (of either gender) against England.
Recently the team was involved in the 2007/2008 Rose Bowl series against Australia, a series that Australia won 3-2.
The team is known as the White Ferns, which is derived from the use of the fern as New Zealand's sporting emblem.
Famous quotes containing the words zealand, national, women, cricket and/or team:
“Teasing is universal. Anthropologists have found the same fundamental patterns of teasing among New Zealand aborigine children and inner-city kids on the playgrounds of Philadelphia.”
—Lawrence Kutner (20th century)
“What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? I venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility ... a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime.”
—Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965)
“Why, since man and woman were created for each other, had He made their desires so dissimilar? Why should one class of women be able to dwell in luxurious seclusion from the trials of life, while another class performed their loathsome tasks? Surely His wisdom had not decreed that one set of women should live in degradation and in the end should perish that others might live in security, preserve their frappeed chastity, and in the end be saved.”
—Madeleine [Blair], U.S. prostitute and “madam.” Madeleine, ch. 10 (1919)
“All cries are thin and terse;
The field has droned the summer’s final mass;
A cricket like a dwindled hearse
Crawls from the dry grass.”
—Richard Wilbur (b. 1921)
“Once a word is spoken, a team of four horse cannot retake it.”
—Chinese proverb.