New Zealand's Rosemary Mair celebrates taking a wicket with captain Sophie Devine. Photo: www.photosport.nz
White Ferns v Pakistan - Women's Cricket World Cup
10:30pm Saturday October 18
R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo
Live blog updates on RNZ
Win and you're in, that's the catchcry for the White Ferns as they chase a semi-final berth at the Cricket World Cup in India and Sri Lanka.
New Zealand sit fifth in the standings with three games remaining before the knockout stage.
Only the final four will advance and with Australia already assured a semi-final spot, the race for the three remaining places now heats up.
New Zealand's Rosemary Mair bowls a delivery. Photo: www.photosport.nz
The White Ferns take on bottom placed Pakistan in Colombo on Saturday night before their final two games against fourth placed India and second placed England.
New Zealand could sneak in to the semis even if they drop another game, but if they win all three matches they will guarantee their place in the final four.
Pace bowler Rosemary Mair said that starts with beating Pakistan and she said the White Ferns are in a confident mood despite having one win, two defeats and a no result from their four games so far.
"The group's actually in a really good space at the moment. I think we've been on the road for a long time now, but we're just heading into crunch time and I think it's a really nice reset for us to just be focused on the end of the tournament," Mair said.
"We've obviously got three pool games left and for us we're just taking it one game at a time. We know if we win those three games we'll be through to the semi-finals so I think for us it's just focusing firstly on that game against Pakistan."
The White Ferns most recent game against co-hosts Sri Lanka was washed out, but New Zealand did bowl a full innings before the rain arrived, with Sri Lanka making 258 for 6.
Mair believed there were plenty of positives to take from the match and she said they had a solid plan for Pakistan.
"I thought the other day our spinners bowled really well in tandem together. I think looking forward to the next game on Saturday, it's how can our seamers and our spinners as well target the stunts and just, I guess, eliminate a bit of width for the batters."
New Zealand's Rosemary Mair celebrates a wicket. Photo: www.photosport.nz
Pakistan also had their most recent match, against England, washed out, but Mair said the White Ferns gathered some valuable intel from watching that clash, in which the Pakistan bowlers and opening batters impressed. England posted 133/9 from 31 overs in the rain reduced match, with Pakistan reaching 34 without loss before the match was called off.
"It was an epic game. Again, a shame about the rain, but I think Fatima Sana, the way she bowled up top early on was exceptional. I think our batters learned a lot to watch Fatima Sana in the areas she hit that were dangerous against England. So I think looking forward to Saturday, we'll be on a similar wicket. So yeah, we definitely took a lot of lessons out of that game," Mair said.
Pakistan have been growing their game over the last few years and have recorded a couple of wins over the White Ferns in recent times. Mair knows they'll be tough to beat despite being winless and at the bottom of the standings.
"Pakistan's a really dangerous side. Obviously played fantastically against England but I think they've got some really dangerous seamers in the power play and then they follow that up with some world-class spinners. From a batting perspective it's just allowing ourselves to read the conditions and really play those bowlers how we want to."
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
