New Zealand’s title defence is wobbling, and the Women’s T20 World Cup is clearer for it
The defending champions have stumbled and the favourites have separated themselves. After one round of the Women’s T20 World Cup, here is how the contenders stack up.
Jun 15, 2026
One round of the Women’s T20 World Cup is rarely enough to tell you who lifts the trophy, but it is usually enough to tell you who is in trouble. After the opening fixtures across England, the team in trouble is the one nobody expected: defending champions New Zealand. Their seven-wicket defeat to West Indies at the Rose Bowl was the result that reshaped the early read on this tournament, and it leaves the favourites looking a little easier to name than they did before a ball was bowled.
New Zealand’s defence is already on the back foot
New Zealand arrived as holders, and they posted 162 for 6 in Southampton, a total that looked competitive rather than commanding. Shemaine Campbelle then took the game away from them with an unbeaten 90, Hayley Matthews chipped in with 48, and West Indies got home with a ball to spare. It was the sort of chase that announces a side as a threat and puts the champions under immediate pressure.
The problem for Melie Kerr’s New Zealand is the company they keep. Group B also contains hosts England and a West Indies side that has just beaten them, and with only two teams from the group of six reaching the knockouts, at least one of that trio is likely to miss out. A defending champion losing its opener has no room left for a slip. New Zealand can still recover, but the margin for error that holders usually enjoy has gone after a single match.
Australia and England have set the benchmark
If New Zealand left questions hanging, Australia and England answered theirs. England opened the tournament at Edgbaston by taking Sri Lanka apart, Danni Wyatt-Hodge making a century at the top of the order and the hosts winning by 87 runs. It was a statement of intent from a side playing at home and desperate to win a World Cup on its own soil.
Australia, as ever, looked the most complete team in the field. Their spinners strangled South Africa at Old Trafford on the way to a 65-run win, and there was nothing in the performance to suggest the most successful side in the tournament’s history intends to loosen its grip. When Australia win their opener without breaking stride, the rest of the field tends to take notice.
India are the team nobody in Group A wants to draw
For an Indian audience the most encouraging sight came at Edgbaston, where India dismantled Pakistan by 64 runs. Smriti Mandhana set the tone with 68 at the top, the total of 170 for 6 was the kind of score that wins knockout matches, and Deepti Sharma’s five-wicket haul turned the chase into a procession. Pakistan were bowled out for 106 and never threatened.
The margin was emphatic, but the balance behind it mattered more. India have spent years being described as a batting side that needs its bowlers to keep up, and here the bowlers led the way. They share Group A with Australia and South Africa, so the road to the last four is hard, but a team that can post 170 and then take ten wickets is not one any opponent will fancy meeting. India do not look like a side merely hoping to reach the semi-finals this time.
The picture after one round
Tournaments turn quickly, and a single good day can flatter a team as easily as one bad day can scar a contender. New Zealand have the players to climb back into Group B, and a couple of the sides who started well will inevitably stumble before the knockouts. But if you were ranking the contenders today, Australia and England would sit at the top, India would be the most dangerous of the chasing pack, and the holders would be the team with the most to prove. For a World Cup that runs to a final at Lord’s on July 5, that is a compelling place to start.