Veteran Suzie Bates has continued her dominant batting form with her 11th international one-day century, carrying New Zealand to a 62-run series-opening victory over India at Queenstown.
As she had three days earlier in their one-off T20 win over the tourists, the NZ opening batter dominated the bowling attack, bringing up her ton in 107 balls and adding another six runs, before she was caught in the outfield.
After compiling a 54-run first-wicket partnership with Maddy Green, Bates combined with Amy Satterthwaite for 98 more, carrying the White Ferns past 200 with plenty of overs to spare and a huge total on the cards.
But the NZ women squandered that opportunity somewhat, with the final seven wickets falling for just 53 runs, as they staggered to a total of 275, failing to bat out their overs. Satterthwaite persevered for 63 off 67 balls, before she became the seventh to depart.
The Ferns bowlers began well, when they had both Indian openers dismissed for just 17 runs, but captain Mithali Raj steadied the chase, putting on 88 runs with Yastika Bhatia for the third wicket.
Mithali played the same role as Bates, anchoring her team's innings, and when she departed for 59 at 130/4, India still had too much ground to make up and the Kiwi bowlers had stemmed the flow of runs. Jess Kerr finished the match on an unfulfilled hat-trick with 4/35, removing tailenders Poonam Yadav and Rajeshwari Gayakwad with consecutive balls to end the resistance.
"It's great to see Suzie Bates scoring runs out in the middle," reflects Ferns skipper Sophie Devine. "This was a great first-up effort from us, we spoke about just playing good cricket for extended periods of time and we did that today.
"Hitting 150 after 30 [overs] and having wickets in the shed was something we've spoken about for a long, long time. It was disappointing to finish the way we did - I think we left 12 balls out there and who knows what we could have got from that - so there's plenty of room for improvement and that's exciting for us."
The result is another morale-booster for a side that has struggled for wins in recent years, with a World Cup on home soil looming next month.
New Zealand and India contest the second of their five ODI matches at Queenstown on Tuesday.
New Zealand 275 (Bates 106, Satterthwaite 63, A Kerr 33, Gayakwad 2/28) India 213 (Mithali 59, Yastika 41, J Kerr 4/35)
New Zealand win by 62 runs
