Cricket: World Cup chances on the line for White Ferns against England

New Zealand batter Sophie Devine hits a six against Pakistan during the ICC Women's World Cup 2017. Photo/Getty Images

With her team's ICC World Cup chances hanging in the balance, White Ferns skipper Suzie Bates is trying to take tournament standings out of play.

The New Zealand women are among five teams now contesting four semifinal spots in the 50-over format, but face two other contenders in their final preliminary outings, starting with top-of-the-table England tomorrow night.

While the Kiwis' run rate is extremely healthy - their plus-2.301 is the best of the tournament - that won't help much if they falter over the next four days.

"I think, these last two games, we've just got to win," Bates told Radio Sport Breakfast. "On Wednesday, we have to beat England and if we win the last two games, the table and run rate will take care of themselves.

"Those are the things we can control and two good wins should put us into the semifinals - that's what we're focusing on.

"If we can beat England, that will put is in a better position on Saturday to maybe challenge our run rate against India."

The Ferns' run rate has undoubtedly benefitted from facing the bottom three teams - Sri Lanka, West Indies and Pakistan - early in their schedule and they have fully capitalised, winning by nine wickets, eight wickets and eight wickets respectively.

Their only lapse so far has been to champions Australia, but the rained-out draw against South Africa, where points were shared, has cost them dearly in the tight race so far.

But no team is unbeaten and the tournament is still wide open for any of those top five teams. Although the English toppled the Aussies in their last outing, they earlier lost to India.

"England have always been a really strong side, but this World Cup has been really interesting in terms of results," said Bates.

"India beat England early on and then got absolutely thrashed by South Africa, so you can't read too much into games that have happened before, because teams have been up on different days and results have been quite different."

West Indies have been the biggest disappointments so far - they were beaten finalists four years ago and took the T20 World Cup last year.

They allowed White Ferns wicketkeeper and opening batter Rachel Priest to plunder 90 runs off 50 balls, then Sophie Devine stepped up against Pakistan, smashing a record nine sixes for 93 off 41 balls.

"The last two games, we've managed to give our run rate a bit of a boost, but it wasn't that intentional," said Bates.

"We wanted to bat first against Pakistan, because we thought it was a good wicket, but they won the toss. We kept them to a pretty good score and then Sophie decided to belt them out of the park.

"These two games have been exactly what we've talked about. When we have players like Rachel and Sophie, who can hit the ball further than anyone, we just want them to have the confidence to do that against any opposition.

"The likes of Amy [Satterthwaite] can be the rock in the middle and everyone can bat around her - that's the approach we've been trying to get with the bat."