Australia seek points and perfection against confident New Zealand

On the sidelines of a comfortable win despite a few brief flutters in Australia's World Cup opener, Alyssa Healy spoke of being 'decent without being perfect'. Australia had tied Sri Lanka down to a sub-100 total and chased it in the 15th over and yet the captain left with the hope of tightening the screws a lot more. The expectation, though, was par for the course coming from a team often setting a high bar in the sport. It's why their trophy cabinet accounts for six of the eight women's T20 World Cup titles contested so far, with room made for another sparkling addition by the end of this month.

It's too early to say which team could be a roadblock to those endeavours but Tuesday presents a fascinating scenario - a confident New Zealand arrive in Sharjah to make the serial winners uncomfortable. Any chip on the shoulders and spring to the steps of the New Zealand players comes from picking up two huge points with a thumping win over India to begin their campaign.

The early trend at the tournament suggests we're in for a handful of sub-100 totals, but shouldn't get one on Tuesday. New Zealand adjusted well to the potential middle-overs struggles and maximised both ends of their batting innings (55/0 in PowerPlay; 43/1 in last 4 overs) against India to post the only 120-plus total of the World Cup so far (160/4). They also come armed with experience to keep that going at this level - opener Suzie Bates is the leading run-getting in Women's T20 World Cups and the only one with 1000-plus runs. Australia's counter to that of course, is Megan Schutt who sits atop the wickets chart in the history of the tournament and was instrumental