Ramel produces quality at right time for White Ferns

Lynn McConnell

December 23, 2000

Hard as it was to single out a member of the CLEAR White Ferns for individual honours in Saturday's thrilling CricInfo Women's World Cup final which New Zealand won for the first time, all-rounder Kathryn Ramel must have come close.

It was her batting which gave substance to New Zealand's innings when it looked like falling over.

She came to the wicket with New Zealand 88/3 in the 26th over and departed 21 overs later having scored her highest total in One-Day Internationals of 41 but also having seen 84 valuable runs added.

She played some lovely attacking strokes as the New Zealand momentum built towards the end of the innings.

"I like the opportunity to bat for a long innings. But it was disappointing to walk off the ground having got out in the 40s with overs still to be bowled.

"However, it turns out the runs we scored were just enough," she said.

Having done that she was called into the bowling attack and she was required to bowl near the death because Drumm had decided to bowl out the economic Katrina Keenan at a vital stage of the innings. She wanted to keep the clamps on the Australians.

Once Keenan was finished, Australia still had every chance. But she picked up the dangerous wicket of Cathryn Fitzpatrick, by bowling her for six.

It was a controversial moment as it wasn't immediately appreciated that the leg-side bail had dropped off the wicket.

Wicket-keeper Rebecca Rolls attempted a stumping by throwing the ball from well behind the stumps as Fitzpatrick looked to be out of her ground.

Fortunately, for New Zealand, Rolls did not break the wicket.

Had she, what happened next would not have been possible.

Following her throw, Rolls realised the wicket was broken and her appeal for the umpires to recognise the wicket had been broken resulted in the third umpire being brought into play to use the technology available to see if the wicket had been broken.

After a lengthy delay it was clear the ball had shaved the wicket resulting in the broken stump.

"I was surprisingly calm when I was asked to bowl. Katrina [Keenan] had a word with me and told me just to keep it simple.

"We had done so much hard work to be ready for the tournament I wasn't prepared to do away with it all.

"Mike Shrimpton had us training to get used to working under pressure. We had trained for this and it worked," she said.

Australian coach John Harmer was not happy with the third umpire's ruling on the Fitzpatrick dismissal.

He said he wasn't quibbling with the fact that New Zealand won, rather he was concerned with the philosophical nature of cricket that sportsmanship should prevail and that umpires should be allowed back into the game and not have to rely on technology to make hairline decisions.

If there was an element of doubt it had to go in favour of the batsman, he said.

By contrast, and not surprisingly, New Zealand coach Mike Shrimpton was all in favour of employing technology to make correct calls. He wasn't prepared to go any further in the debate.

© Cricinfo

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CricInfo Women's World Cup

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