The White Ferns are left to ponder a 'what-may-have-been' campaign at the Cricket World Cup on home soil, as the New Zealand women's side stares at an impending early exit.
With a one-wicket loss suffered against England at Eden Park on Sunday, the White Ferns' record sits at two wins and four losses from their first six games, leaving them dependent on an increasingly unlikely string of results to fall their way to advance to the knockout stage.
Barring the almost impossible, the White Ferns will exit the tournament on Saturday, facing Pakistan at Christchurch's Hagley Oval.
Sunday's defeat came in arguably the cruellest manner of New Zealand's losses to date, fighting back from the brink to leave England sweating.
Chasing 204 in an effective must-win game for both sides, the White Ferns reduced England to 196/9, all without captain Sophie Devine and strike bowler Lea Tahuhu, both of whom picked up injuries over the course of the match.
But ultimately, for the third time this World Cup, the White Ferns ended up on the wrong side of a thriller.
And for acting captain Amy Satterthwaite, the reality of the defeat and premature exit has hit her and the rest of the White Ferns, hard.
"I think if you see our changing room at the moment, it's difficult for everyone," Satterthwaite says.
"Regardless of how experienced or old or young you are, I think everyone's devastated. We're such a tight-knit group, and we really believe in each other. We've come a long way and done a lot of hard work over the last 12-18 months.
"We genuinely believed we could compete with the top teams, and win games of cricket here. There's some pretty devastated human beings in that changing room. That's irrelevant of age or experience."
However, despite the obvious disappointment of New Zealand's failure, there is one clear issue that's left the White Ferns in this position.
Barring a shortened run chase in a rain-affected win over Bangladesh, the White Ferns have batted for their full 50 overs just once, and have been bowled out four times.
New Zealand's defeats against the West Indies, South Africa and England all went down to the wire, and extra runs would have ultimately meant a semi-final berth for the White Ferns.
Despite a top four of Devine, Satterthwaite, Suzie Bates and Amelia Kerr being arguably the strongest in the White Ferns' history, repeated failures with the bat will loom as the catalyst of New Zealand's exit.
And while each of those four have chipped in with scores throughout the tournament, Devine is the only White Ferns batter to have scored a century.
"If we're honest… the batting is probably the thing that's let us down the most," Satterthwaite adds. "The ball has really tried to keep us in the tournament, and fought extremely hard and we can really be proud of that.
"But putting up scores of 200, 220-odd against world class opposition unfortunately is just not enough.
"We need to find a way to get bigger totals on the board."
Regardless, the World Cup will ultimately go down as a tournament of missed opportunities for the White Ferns, with those three losses standing out as key chances missed.
And all things considered, only the 141-run loss to Australia stands out as a game in which the White Ferns had been comprehensively outplayed.
But as a senior member of this White Ferns side, Satterthwaite hails the fight shown by the team, fighting until the very end on more than one occasion.
"You always hope you can be on the other side of those results. I think the biggest thing, for me, is [I'm] just proud of how the group's stuck at it in each game.
"We've got things in each one that you'd really look back on and wish we'd done better, most probably with the bat.
"But the way we've really stuck at it and fought as a group - I think historically we would have rolled over a little bit more [often].
"So to show that guts and fight, regardless of what position the opposition were in and keep going, I'm really proud of the group for doing that consistently throughout this campaign."
Join Newshub for live updates of the White Ferns v Pakistan from 11am Saturday.
