New Zealand legend Sophie Devine received a guard of honour after featuring in her last ODI match against England during the Women's ODI World Cup 2025 on Sunday, October 29. Devine, the White Ferns skipper, brought down a 19-year-old illustrious ODI career with the side, having featured in the second most matches for her team: 159.
The White Ferns endured a tough World Cup, marred by rain wash-outs as they bagged a solitary win from the five completed matches they played. Two of their seven games were washed out.
New Zealand suffered a drubbing at the hands of England in their last league stage match at the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam. Devine did not had a great outing with the bat but picked a wicket of Heather Knight with the ball as the English side chased down the target in 29.2 overs.
After the conclusion of the match, Devine received a guard of honour from her teammates and also from the England players, all of whom lined up near the boundary line paying tribute to the Kiwi legend.
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Meanwhile, Devine reflected on the match, the World Cup and her career. "Disappointing. Not to make it about myself, I wanted to go out on a high and today's performance wasn't that. Credit to England, they stuck at it and did the job with the bat," she said during the post-match presentation.
The 36-year-old said announcing her decision to retire earlier has helped her come to terms with the emotions of her farewell match.
"Actually didn't cry as much as I thought I was going to. Great thing about announcing it was I was able to process emotions," she said.
"It was about enjoying it today and going back to the roots of 19 years ago, and why I play."
Devine said it was particularly special to share the field one last time with long-time teammate and close friend Suzie Bates. "Nice to finish with Suzie Bates bowling down the other end, to share that was really special.
We'll celebrate in the changing room and have a few drinks tonight. They've shut up shop, so I don't know, they've left me out to dry."
Meanwhile, Devine had earlier declined a guard of honour as she wanted to keep her retirement low-key. "Yeah, well, I'm not retiring from T20 cricket just yet, so I thought it was a bit weird. If they give me a guard of honour and then I walk out next game against England in a guard of honour, are they going to do that every single time. I mean maybe I should have and they can just keep doing it. But yeah, I guess it's hard because I guess with having made my announcement so early, everyone knows about it and they probably want to recognise it. Whereas I would have just liked to have gone under the radar and gone about my business like any other day," said Devine.
