This is the second time that Breearne Illing – also known as Bree on the cricketing circuit – finds herself in India.

In 2022, she came to Mumbai as part of the New Zealand Women’s Development Tour. Now, in 2025, she’s playing in her first World Cup, capping off a ‘whirlwind’ year which also saw her receive maiden ODI and T20I caps, and an “unexpected” central contract – all within seven months.

“To get offered my contract, which I wasn’t actually expecting at all, was just amazing — I couldn’t have thought of anything better,” Illing told Sportstar ahead of the match against Bangladesh in Guwahati on Friday.

In the ongoing 50-over showpiece, Illing has already snaffled a couple of wickets against Australia – including its skipper Alyssa Healy – after the left-arm pacer had taken three scalps against India A and India in the warm-up matches.

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“My teammates are just so supportive and caring. Many of them were constantly checking in on me against Australia, making sure I was all right, if I was calm, feeling happy, or nervous.

Leah (Tahuhu) has been amazing. She and Sophie (Devine) were on the drives, and they talked to me about every ball, just encouraging me to keep going,” the 22-year-old said.

Illing has the ability to bring the ball into both right and left-handers, and she believes the novelty factor works in her favour. “The angle across the batter (and the ball) coming back in and just the fact that I’m a left-arm (pacer), it’s a different release point that the batters are probably not used to.”

Overcoming injury and keeping a curious mind busy

But Illing hasn’t always had the smoothest of actions and struggled with injuries because of it.

When she was 13, Illing suffered a potential stress fracture on her back, derailing her cricket plans for a bit. She slowly returned to her run up, thanks to Martyn Sigley, a player-turned physio. “He’s been amazing and helped me keep my love for the sport.”

But her brushes with injury continued. Illing was forced to pull out of the 2023 Under-19 Women’s World Cup after sustaining a back strain during the tour of India a year before.

While Illing missed out on being part of the team which reached the semifinals of the inaugural edition of the U-19 World Cup, she had academics to keep her curious mind busy.

At the start of this year, she graduated from the University of Auckland with a Bachelor’s in Science, majoring in Exercise and Biology. “In exercise science, just learning a lot about the biomechanics and how the body works is what I applied in cricket and while looking at footage during training.”

“I like knowing how things work and to me, the human body and how it works for sport is very interesting.

With biology, I was looking at genetics, plants, and animals and how they work. Now, I’m doing forensic science which is probably a little bit more interesting than those two so that’s exciting,” Illing added.

Challenging conditions

Prior to the World Cup, she played her first three ODIs (against Sri Lanka) in home conditions. Illing has found pitches in the subcontinent drier and the humidity double of what she gets in Auckland, but she’s slowly figuring out the challenge.

The White Ferns now play Bangladesh in a crucial fixture after opening the campaign with consecutive losses. “We’re taking a lot of learnings from the first two games and slowly putting pieces together. We’re just looking for that final piece of the puzzle to really get us our first one on the board.”

Published on Oct 10, 2025