With a little help from her friends, Georgia Plimmer is getting comfortable at the top

Georgia Plimmer's cricket journey has followed a familiar New Zealand script: dabble in a mix of sports, pick up a cricket bat and fall in love with the game. But few players have matched her rapid rise. At just 20 she powered New Zealand to their maiden T20 World Cup title in 2024, finishing as their top run-scorer. Now she's setting her sights on the next big prize: the ODI World Cup.

Plimmer backs her optimism. It got her through a promotion up the order before the T20 World Cup, and helped her bounce back from her "biggest injury" right after. Now, even with a six-month ODI drought leading into the World Cup, she's staying upbeat.

After a few one-dayers with the New Zealand A team against England A in July, she was part of a camp in Chennai at the CSK academy, sharpening her game against spin and adjusting to India's heat. Back home during the winter break, she focused on strength and conditioning, and fitness, to gain "mental clarity" and build the stamina to stay out there "as long as possible."

"It'd be pretty incredible for that to happen in the last year and a half, to win both World Cups, that's what we're aiming for at the moment," she says. "I think as a side we've talked a lot about how we want to be playing our 50-over cricket. I think only being able to scrape into [this ODI] World Cup [finishing sixth on the Women's Championship table] without having to go to qualifiers, I think that almost kicked us in the arse a little bit to be like, 'Right, we really need to knuckle down and figure out what are our strengths.'

"We've been having winter camps here where it's been under 10 degrees, so it was a lot different going to Chennai. That was another main reason for going there - to try and get heat-acclimatised. We tried to be out for three hours of the day to try and mimic being out there in an innings of 50-over cricket."

Plimmer has some experience playing in India, having been part of the ODI series in Ahmedabad last October. She took the learnings from that series and focused on a few technical aspects of her batting, facing a lot of legspin at the CSK academy nets.

"Coming from New Zealand, where the pitches probably get a bit more bounce, we learnt a lot about having to stay low in our stance and be able to get your head over the ball to be able to hit the ball along the ground. For me personally, it was probably just being able to find different gaps while hitting along the ground and still being able to hit hard and straight, even if the ball is turning a bit more. It was a lot different to playing something in New Zealand, where the ball might not turn or it would bounce a bit more than what it does in India."

Plimmer got her start in softball, which she played from age five, and the transition to cricket came almost by accident. She had little exposure to the sport growing up and only picked it up at 13, while studying at Tawa College, the school that produced New Zealand internationals Sophie Devine, and Amelia and Jess Kerr. It was Robbie Kerr, father of the Kerr sisters and the school's cricket coach, who recognised that her softball background could translate well to cricket.

What drew Plimmer in, though, was the tactical depth of the game. "Every ball was about problem-solving," she says, "and the difference in being able to think tactically about how I wanted to do different things [while facing a ball] and how different people would react to the same thing."

She also has softball to thank for her athleticism in the field. From the flying catch to dismiss Shafali Verma in the U-19 World Cup semi-final in 2023 to the sharp effort running in from square leg to remove Skye Bowden in the 2024 Women's Super Smash, her fielding continues to be a standout feature of her game. "Getting an opportunity to play for my domestic team was solely off the back of my fielding, to be honest," she says.

"We did so much during softball, whether that was throwing, learning how to dive and feel comfortable diving on your body, or being able to run angles to cut off a ball, I think being able to learn that so early really helped me get further in cricket."

The Kerr sisters were her seniors in college and watching Amelia rise through school cricket and break into the senior side at 16 was eye-opening for Plimmer. "Fast forward to now where I get to train with her [Amelia] day in, day out in our home in Wellington, and be able to play with her and learn from her… I know she's still quite young, but she's been at most of the franchise tournaments, she's played across the world and with some of the superstars of the game. So the knowledge that she's gotten from them and being able to bring back into our environment as well has been awesome."

Another role model from her school is captain Devine, who is set to retire from ODIs after the World Cup. Plimmer describes Devine's leadership as second to none and says her influence goes well beyond the field. She credits New Zealand's T20 World Cup success to Devine's ability to bring the team together.

"She [Devine] has just put a lot of work into our new structure for this upcoming campaign, and a lot of that's to do with the Māori culture that we're building into our team. I think the way that she's been able to incorporate so many different aspects to make our team gel together, I think is incredible. I think without her, the T20 World Cup win would never have happened."

Having spent most of her career in the middle order, Plimmer was promoted to open during the white-ball series in England last year - a role she had briefly taken on for her domestic side Wellington Blaze. Unsure at first, she leaned on opening partner Suzie Bates to find her feet.

"I didn't really trust that my technique was going to be good enough to be able to face a moving ball," Plimmer says of opening the batting. "Having Suzie there and being able to talk with her and the coaches in a little group to build me with confidence about opening the batting and, especially in T20 cricket, how much freedom it gives you as an opener to be able to [be the] only two out [made a difference]. I think that was a main part of me being able to free up my game and be a bit more aggressive up the top, being able to try and hit straight and hit over covers, which was really good.

The move paid off: it unlocked a more aggressive version of her game, which was on show at the T20 World Cup, which Plimmer kicked off with a vital 34 in the win over India, before top-scoring with a composed 53 off 44 in a low-scoring scrap against Sri Lanka, where she handled the spinners with ease.

But her momentum was halted shortly after. A hip injury ruled her out of action for nearly six months, forcing her to miss the Australia series and most of the domestic summer.

"It was pretty big sort of buzzkill to what we'd just worked on, and winning the World Cup," she says. "I was pretty excited to come off of a bit of confidence from getting some runs prior to that, and then having four months off trying to rehab the biggest injury that I've had in my career. But it was a nice time to reflect on what we had done in that two-month period, which a lot of the girls probably didn't have."

She made her comeback from injury in style. In the third ODI against Sri Lanka last March, she hit 112, her first international century, sharing a 108-run stand with Bates to help seal the series 2-0. While unsure how her body would hold up, there were no nerves as the milestone approached.

"It was pretty surreal being able to play at home in the summer and be able to do that with the team," she says. "And to be able to also bat with Suzie, who obviously has played for many, many years and has seen so many people come through. I wasn't really nervous. I think when you're setting a score, it's a little bit different. You're wanting to not think about the milestones as much. We've talked about having big partnerships and being able to push on once you get a start, which I personally hadn't done [till then] in the 50-over format for White Ferns. So that was probably the most pleasing part."

Plimmer credits Bates with not just easing her transition to the top of the order but also with helping her understand her strengths as a batter. Whether it's words of encouragement or tactical advice, Bates remains a steady presence at the other end.

"Sometimes you can get a little frustrated at how it's going out there. Having someone out there that knows your game inside and out and being able to be like, 'Hey, just go back to your basics and hit straight for me.' That's one of the big things for me.

"For her [Bates] to be able to stop the game [for you], you can reset your brain and think, 'This is when I'm playing my best.' Having a partner out there like her, she's pretty incredible. Over the last year I've been able to recognise some parts of her game when she's playing her best and hopefully I'm reiterating that back to her so we can get the best out of each other."

Another key figure in her development has been batting coach Dean Brownlie, who she says has been pivotal to her international journey. Since joining the New Zealand set-up at 18, Plimmer has worked closely with Brownlie on both her technique and mental approach, a relationship that continues to shape her game.

"I think most people who know me [know] my head's pretty wild. I can think of a lot of crazy things that can sometimes become distracting for me. For him to be an open ear to listen to all that craziness that I have coming through my brain is amazing.

"I've gone up to Mount Maunganui, where he lives, and he's thrown balls to me for hours and hours. Being able to talk technique with him knowing my game inside and out because he's worked for so many hours on it helps me clear my head and be able to stick to my strengths out in the [field] as well. I think without him, I would be nowhere [near] where I am right now."

Off the field, she's also made strides in mental skills training, learning to recognise and manage distractions during matches, an area she became increasingly aware of during injury downtime.

"I think with cricket it's such a fickle game that some days you're going to fail probably more than you are going to succeed," she says. Being able to reflect on games in a non-emotional sense and learn from them, throw them away afterwards and go to the next game, I think that's been a big thing, instead of getting so caught up on games before [in which] I haven't scored runs and why I haven't done that."

In the year between the T20 and ODI World Cups, Plimmer has packed in plenty of learning. With the work she's put in, physically and mentally, she's hopeful of playing a key role in helping New Zealand chase a second ICC title in the space of a year.