Pakistan Women’s vs New Zealand Women’s National Cricket Team Timeline: A Brutal 28-Match Rivalry

The Complete Rivalry Record

Pakistan Women and New Zealand Women have met 28 times across ODIs and T20Is since 1997. New Zealand have won the overwhelming majority of those encounters, though Pakistan’s 2023–24 T20I series victory marked the first genuine shift in a rivalry that had stayed one-sided for over two decades.

What is the overall head-to-head record?

New Zealand Women lead this rivalry decisively, with a combined win record of roughly 24 victories from 28 matches across both formats. Pakistan Women’s wins remain rare enough that each one carries outsized significance in the context of this fixture.

Pakistan Women’s vs New Zealand Women’s National Cricket Team Timeline: Overall record

That 86 percent win rate for New Zealand across formats isn’t a scheduling quirk. It reflects a genuine, sustained gap in bowling depth and top-order batting consistency that defined this fixture for most of its history.

Why the gap has been so wide

New Zealand’s seam and spin attacks, from the pace-heavy units of the 2000s to Amelia Kerr’s control in the modern era, have repeatedly restricted Pakistan’s batting to totals well below par. Pakistan’s counter has usually come from individual brilliance rather than collective batting depth, which is exactly why their rare wins have felt more like ambushes than systemic breakthroughs.

What is the ODI head-to-head record?

New Zealand Women have won 15 of 17 ODIs against Pakistan Women since January 1997, with Pakistan managing a single win and one tie. That’s an 88 percent win rate for New Zealand in the format where the gap has been most brutal.

Highest team totals in this fixture

New Zealand’s batting depth shows up starkly in the highest totals recorded in this rivalry, several of which came in one-sided routs.

Lowest team totals in this fixture

Pakistan’s batting collapses against New Zealand form a recurring pattern, and the numbers below explain why this rivalry has stayed so lopsided.

The 1996–97 record-breaking rout

New Zealand’s 455/5 at Christchurch in January 1997 stood as a Women’s ODI world record total at the time, and Pakistan’s reply of just 47 all out gave New Zealand a 408-run win — also a world record margin. That result wasn’t just a bad day for Pakistan. It set the psychological template for this rivalry a full generation before either program had modern professional structures in place.

What is the T20I head-to-head record?

New Zealand Women hold a 9-2 advantage in T20Is, but that record undersells how competitive the format has become since 2023. Pakistan’s only two T20I wins both came within the last three years, which is the clearest statistical proof that this rivalry is not static.

Leading run-scorers and wicket-takers

Suzie Bates has been New Zealand’s most destructive weapon against Pakistan across formats, while Amelia Kerr has done the most damage with the ball.

Fatima Sana’s record-breaking Dubai fielding effort

Pakistan’s heaviest recent defeat still produced one standout individual moment. During New Zealand’s 54-run win in Dubai at the 2024 T20 World Cup, Fatima Sana took four catches in a single innings, breaking Bismah Maroof’s previous Pakistan record of three. That kind of fielding brilliance in a lopsided loss deserves recognition on its own terms, separate from the result around it.

Which series results define this rivalry?

Eight bilateral and World Cup series or standalone group meetings have shaped this fixture since 1997, and New Zealand have controlled almost all of them. The one clear exception came in December 2023, when Pakistan finally won a bilateral series in this fixture for the first time.

Series and fixture results

Pakistan’s lone ODI win came in 2017

Pakistan’s only ODI win against New Zealand came in Sharjah in November 2017, a five-wicket chase built around Bismah Maroof’s innings that ended a 13-match losing streak in the format. New Zealand had already won that same UAE tour’s T20I series 4-0, which makes Pakistan’s ODI response genuinely impressive rather than a footnote — beating a clearly stronger side even once in that stretch deserved more credit than it got at the time.

Why the 2023–24 T20I series matters more than any single result

Pakistan’s 2-1 T20I series win in New Zealand in December 2023 is the most significant result in this rivalry’s history, and calling it anything less would undersell it. A team that had won only two T20Is against New Zealand across the previous fourteen years beat them twice in a three-match series on New Zealand’s own soil. That is not an upset; it is evidence of a genuine shift in competitive balance.

The same tour also produced a tied ODI at Hagley Oval, Christchurch, with both sides finishing on 251. Pakistan’s middle order, historically this fixture’s weakest link, held its nerve deep into a chase against a New Zealand attack that had rarely been made to work this hard before.

How has the balance of power shifted since 2023?

Pakistan’s improved form on New Zealand soil in December 2023 is the clearest evidence yet that the gap in this fixture is closing, even though New Zealand still leads every long-run statistical category. The scale of that shift should not be overstated, but it should not be dismissed either.

What Pakistan still needs to prove

Beating New Zealand once in a bilateral series does not erase 26 years of one-sided results. Pakistan’s next real test is repeating that 2023–24 form against a full-strength New Zealand side away from home, ideally in an ICC event where the stakes are higher than a bilateral tour.

What does the World Cup record look like?

New Zealand have won every completed T20 World Cup group meeting against Pakistan, in 2010, 2014, 2018, and 2024, and also won their only completed 50-over World Cup meeting, at Christchurch in 2022. Pakistan have never beaten New Zealand at a global ICC women’s event, which remains the single biggest gap in their record against this opponent.

The 2024 Dubai collapse

New Zealand restricted Pakistan to 56 all out while defending a modest 110 in Dubai at the 2024 T20 World Cup, a target Pakistan needed to chase inside 11.3 overs to stay alive in the tournament on net run rate. Losing five wickets for four runs in the space of 11.4 overs was a genuinely costly batting collapse, not bad luck, and it ended Pakistan’s tournament while sending New Zealand into their first World Cup semi-final since 2016.

Pakistan’s batting order changes that night, including sending Aliya Riyaz in to open, were a reasonable gamble given the required rate, but the execution let the tactic down badly. New Zealand’s bowling change to bring Amelia Kerr into the attack at the right moment was the smarter piece of captaincy in that match, and it effectively ended the contest.

Where do the two teams stand today?

New Zealand remain the stronger side by every meaningful long-run measure: batting depth, bowling variety, and World Cup pedigree. Pakistan’s 2023–24 T20I series win is real progress, but it is one series against a rivalry stretching back to 1997, and sustaining that form is now the only thing that will change how this fixture is remembered.

The next bilateral or ICC meeting between these two sides will answer the real question this record leaves open: whether December 2023 was the start of genuine parity, or simply the one series where Pakistan finally got everything right at once.

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