Sophie Devine, Suzie Bates and Lea Tahuhu Retires: New Zealand’s World Cup journey ended with a crushing 9-wicket defeat at the hands of England in its last group match of the Women’s T20 World Cup 2026. The defeat in this match played at The Oval ground in London was not only disappointing for the Kiwi team, but it also ended a historic and golden era of New Zealand cricket. Three great players of the team, Sophie Devine, Suzie Bates and Lee Tahuhu retired from international cricket after this match. Although, it was not the farewell that these legends had expected, but the careers of all three were unmatched and historic.
Retirement of three greats together
Sophie Devine, Suzie Bates and Lee Tahuhu had announced their retirement even before the start of this tournament. The statistics of these three players who took New Zealand women’s cricket to great heights speak volumes of their greatness. Suzie Bates is retiring as the greatest and most played player in the history of New Zealand cricket. Bates has scored a record 10,721 runs in his career of 370 international matches, which is a great record.
In her 20-year long historic international career, Sophie Devine also played a total of 317 matches for New Zealand. During this period, he scored 4279 runs in ODI and 3817 runs in T20. In which many match winning innings were also included. Along with this, he also took 241 wickets. Due to which he is also counted among the most successful all-rounders. On the other hand, Lee Tahuhu, who was an important fast bowler of the Kiwi team, represented the team in a total of 207 matches in her 15-year long international career and took 225 wickets.
Both the teams together gave ‘Guard of Honor’
To make this historic and emotional moment even more special, players and support staff of both New Zealand and England teams came together on the field. All the players together formed a queue and bid farewell to these three great cricketers together by giving them a ‘guard of honour’.
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How was the performance of the giants in the last match?
Batting first in the match, New Zealand team scored 163 runs losing 6 wickets in 20 overs. Captain Amelia Kerr played the highest innings of 42 runs on 34 balls for the team. At the same time, in her last international match, former captain Sophie Devine was seen in excellent form. She played a blazing inning of 30 runs with the help of 3 sixes in just 14 balls. Experienced Suzie Bates also batted well and scored 19 runs in 13 balls before being run out on the last ball of the innings. But Lee Tahuhu could not take any wicket in the match.
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