Cricket: Bring on Australia says NZ skipper

New Zealand are in better shape to face Australia in the women's cricket World Cup final on Saturday than they were three years ago, says captain Emily Drumm.

The White Ferns yesterday easily beat India by nine wickets in their semifinal at Lincoln Oval, near Christchurch, to qualify for the final and set up a transtasman showdown against the reigning champions.

Australia are unbeaten at the CricInfo-sponsored tournament while the White Ferns' only loss was their opening round-robin match against Australia.

Drumm believes that her team, eight of whom appeared in the 1997 final in Calcutta, India, are performing better than when they lost that final.

"Some of us have been there, done that, which will be a help," she said.

"But this tournament has a totally different atmosphere with good cricket wickets, and I believe we have been able to lift ourselves to another level, which we need to compete with Australia."

Drumm was enthusiastic about New Zealand's performance yesterday.

Not only did they dismiss India for just 117, but they took only 26.5 overs to seal their win.

"India are not as bad a side as the scoreboard says and I'm quite ecstatic about our performance. It was a pretty complete effort.

"We played as well as we have all tournament," she said.

Drumm said the Indian batters did not have enough skill or imagination yet to work the ball around the park, which made field-setting more straightforward.

"While they are wristy players they don't seem to hit much to certain parts of the ground, like long off and long on. But they are an unpredictable side and you never know what they are going to come up with."

India did surprise, by changing their hitherto largely successful batting order.

The gamble did not pay off, with the visitors largely self-destructing under another sharp New Zealand bowling and fielding display.

When leading Indian run-getters Chandrakanta Kaul and Anjum Chopra were dismissed for ducks by medium pacer Kathryn Ramel, India's innings was undermined early.

Chopra was undone first ball by a swinging yorker from Ramel and at that stage, India were 26 for three - a situation that they never recovered from.

Opener Purnima Rau batted solidly at one end to finish unbeaten on 67 from 133 balls but three wickets were lost to run outs.

India's paltry 117 was never going to test the now efficient White Ferns.

Player-of-the-match Anna O'Leary compiled her third half-century of the tournament, her unbeaten 50 coming from 94 balls and including five fours.

O'Leary and Drumm shared an unbeaten second-wicket stand of 86.

Drumm was in a dominant mood to dispatch anything remotely off line in making an unbeaten 47 from just 43 balls that included eight fours.

- NZPA