Haidee Tiffen: "I have been a part of the winning World Cup team in 2000 and made friendships I know will last forever" © Getty Images

One reason for my decision to retire was the loss of earnings for us while we are on tour. It is very difficult to balance full time teaching and full-time cricket. If I was paid I probably would still be playing. It is hard to keep the balance and I know it has been my choice for the past few years and I certainly did not play for money, I played because I am hugely passionate about cricket and my country. The positive thing in the women’s game is that the playing programme for the women has grown but there is far more of a time commitment now in order to prepare for those tours and I suppose the loss of earnings on tour did come into account in my decision to retire. It is not the main reason but certainly a part of the reason.

We always knew that the World Cup was going to be a learning experience and if we needed a lesson in how to deliver one of the best batting performances of all time then we saw it on Thursday with Suzie Bates and Haidee Tiffen’s amazing 262-run partnership.

Suzie’s innings in particular was the best-ever innings I have ever seen, even if we did help her by bowling both sides of the wicket. The way she powerfully struck our bowlers all around the ground was quite incredible and a great lesson for us to observe.

The New Zealand and Pakistan teams have become very close during this event, ever since we played a warm-up game against each other, and they have been very helpful at passing on tips to us about how to make it at the top level.

Our batting is peaking at the right time and today we didn’t mess around with the line-up much. It’s a settled batting order which makes me feel at ease ahead of meeting England. I know we took 48 overs to bowl Pakistan out but it doesn’t worry me – their openers batted really well and the rest of the line-up hardly played any shots to give us a chance. There is still some concern over the fielding – we conceded many overthrows today – and that is an area we really need to work on.

Rebecca Rolls, our former keeper, is holidaying in Australia right now and I must say she timed it well! She has always been a great supporter and morale-booster for us since she retired, always sending us texts and emails encouraging us. She is spending time with the team right now and was part of the side that rattled up 455 against Pakistan in 1997. How cool would that have been? She was certainly pleased by the show we put up.

And we still have to improve in some of the areas, especially fielding. We need to take the opportunities we get: today we missed some run-outs and dropped a few catches and that can hurt us in the long run. Overall we have to be more consistent.

We gave away 21 wides today but you know it’s not like the bowlers mean to bowl them. As a captain, I try and encourage my players, give the bowlers time to settle down and have a chat with them if required. After the game today we had a de-briefing where the bowlers acknowledged that they needed to work on their lines better.

The Indian lower order, led by Reema Malhotra, batted really well and I don’t think we could have done anything to stop them. India have been successful in scoring that way – they have started out slow and taken advantage of the Powerplays to get the runs. They have relied on scoring in the death overs and that’s what they did today as well.

I am also happy that our top order is taking the responsibility of batting through the innings. Suzie [Bates] did that for us today. Learning from our failed run-chase against England, we drew up a gameplan where we wanted Kate Pulford to go out and play her attacking shots while I consolidated. Then Suzie would come in and take charge. She did just that today; it was a very mature innings from her and I can tell you she’s stoked about it.

The pitch was very good and we know the Indian spinners can tie us down so we wanted to get going before they came on.

While our net run-rate is lower than India’s and Australia’s, I think we just need to concentrate on winning against Pakistan to reach the final. It’s not too far away now!

March 15, 2009

Time to bring on the A-game

Posted by Haidee Tiffen on 03/15/2009 in Women's World Cup, 2009

It was a disappointing loss against England and I have to say some poor fielding cost us. We leaked about 20 runs on the field unnecessarily and the game slipped from our hands there. The pitch was slow and aided the spinners – England’s did better obviously.

Among the top teams, New Zealand have played England and Australia in the World Cup so far and I have to say that their bowling attacks are similar – they both have very disciplined units and good allrounders like Shelley Nitschke, Lisa Sthalekar and Charlotte Edwards. Our strength I’d say is the ability of our pace bowlers to get some nip out of the pitches – Nicola Browne and Sophie Devine manage to get bounce and swing off the tracks. What has let us down is our inconsistency.

If you see a pattern in the run-scoring in this tournament, you’ll see the teams that have done well have firstly been able to adapt to the different ground conditions: the North Sydney Oval helps fast bowlers, while Bankstown is slower, where 180 would be a good total; secondly a top-order batsman, like Anjum Chopra against Australia, has stayed on till 40 overs to steer the batting. We have that sort of batsmen, who can stay long and score at a quick rate and when we get it right we are a very strong batting team.

We meet India on Tuesday and we know we need to be on the top of our game. People are saying India’s win against Australia was an ‘upset’ of sorts but really you can never underestimate a top-ranked team even if they are in a transitional phase. Any of the top four in this World Cup can beat the rest.

I’d like to also say that the most impressive teams on this World Cup for me have been the relatively inexperienced ones – Pakistan, West Indies and South Africa. The West Indies bowlers bowl really good line and lengths while the others are also very committed on the field. They are young teams, full of enthusiasm and it’s been a revelation watching them play.