A former top runner, Jess Kerr has repeatedly won battles against illness to fulfil her cricket dream
Deivarayan Muthu22-Sep-2025Jess Kerr never gives up. Both on field and off it.The 27-year-old seam-bowling allrounder has overcome a number of medical problems to become a New Zealand international. Growing up in the Wellington suburb of Tawa, she broke age-group records as a runner. She won the 800m and 1500m gold medals at the Colgate Games athletic championships for seven-to-14-year-olds in New Zealand, but then compartment syndrome in her legs halted her running career.When she was nine, she was suffered a bout of Bell’s palsy, which causes temporary weakness or paralysis on one side of the face. Later, when she entered her teens, she was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes.Related
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If not for her courage and resilience, Kerr would have been lost to sport. She had to let go of her dream of becoming a runner, but she took to cricket, following in the footsteps of her younger sister, Amelia Kerr, who she calls her “older sister/mentor” on the field.Cricket was in the girls’ DNA. Their father Robbie and mother Johanna represented Wellington, while their grandfather Bruce Murray played 13 Tests for New Zealand.”Growing up, Melie was the cricket prodigy and I was known as the running girl in Tawa,” Kerr says on a sidelines of a preparatory camp in the lead-up to the ODI World Cup, at the Chennai Super Kings Academy in Chennai last month. “So that was always a dream of mine – to go as far as I could with that, and from a young age I was training every day with running.”Being diabetic and an athlete has its challenges. You’re constantly trying to make decisions. So, often before a game, I’m checking my levels, trying to predict how that will go in the future. But I think sport sort of saved me and has been my outlet. To be able to represent my country, despite having those things, that’s been a real saviour for me. So I’m just grateful that’s not sort of stopped me from doing what I love.”Kerr bats in the 2022 ODI World Cup•Getty ImagesBoth sisters won the T20 World Cup with New Zealand in Dubai last year, and came home to a rousing reception. They now have a shot at adding the ODI World Cup trophy to their T20 World Cup title.”The four of us White Ferns [Amelia, Jess, Sophie Devine, Georgia Plimmer] are living in Tawa, so to be able to visit our old school [during the trophy tour] where it all started was really awesome,” Kerr says. “The support we get in the Basin [Reserve] throughout the summer is amazing, so to celebrate with those back home who were watching us was just very surreal.”I think there’s something really special about 50-over World Cups – they obviously don’t come around as quickly. And to be able to play in India, too, where it’s a celebrated sport… so we are all really hungry and want to go as far as we can. We have been working really hard on all areas of the game, and yeah, to think it’s sort of coming a bit closer now is really exciting.”Kerr played just one game in last year’s T20 World Cup, but has certainly strengthened her all-round credentials ahead of the upcoming ODI tournament. In the 2024-25 Super Smash, New Zealand’s premier T20 competition, she reinvented her batting, scoring 326 runs in 11 innings at an average of 36.22 and strike rate of nearly 120, in Wellington Blaze’s run to the title. Only Amelia scored more runs in the tournament.
More recently at the Super Kings Academy, Kerr gave it a good whack against competitive bowlers, including India legspinner Asha Sobhana. She has always had the power – having played as a pinch-hitter in the past – and now she has learnt how to harness it.”I’m grateful for Cricket Wellington and the opportunity I got with the Blaze over the summer,” she says. “Just getting the opportunity to bat a bit higher and bat longer, and luckily had some performances go my way. I sort of learnt how to construct innings and now to try and do that at the international level and to be here in a batting camp is pretty special. Hopefully I can continue to develop that aspect of my game.”Ben Sawyer, the New Zealand head coach who travelled to Chennai to oversee the team’s prep, was impressed with Kerr’s progress as a batter. “She was obviously disappointed that she didn’t get to play in all the games [in the 2024 T20 World Cup] and in particular that final,” he says. “But we [team management] spoke to Jess about maybe [how] her batting could be a way into the team.”And to Jess’s credit, she worked really hard and put in huge performances in the Super Smash. She’s probably forced her way into the batting line-up, not to mention what she does with the ball. But credit goes to her for hearing a message, going away and working on it and then putting that into practice and getting the results in Super Smash.”Kerr’s bowling, of course, is her primary skill, and though pitches in India will likely favour spin more, she seems to have a reference point for what to do in these conditions. When New Zealand toured India for three ODIs late last year, she was their highest wicket-taker, with five strikes, despite sitting out one game.Sister act: the Kerrs after last year’s T20 World Cup title win•ICC/Getty Images”[Keeping the stumps in play] for as long as possible is going to be important in India, and I think we’ve seen that change of pace is of huge value as well,” she says. “So that’s something I’m always sort of wanting to work on, but I think just being as consistent as I can be with every delivery I bowl – that’s going to be of huge value for the team.”Kerr also wears another hat off the field – she teaches in the classrooms of Tawa Intermediate in Wellington, which she sees as an opportunity to give back to the community. “My family is also full of teachers, so I grew up around that, and it brings joy to give back to the community and all that,” she says. “I’m grateful for it as it’s given me a sense of the real world and grateful that I have come across people from those two jobs [teaching and cricket] as well.”Melie was a teacher’s aide, actually, when I was a teacher as well, so sometimes I got her to help with my math teaching when I was there; she’d take some of my kids out for a math lesson.”Who is the more popular White Fern in the Kerr extended family?”Ooh, tough question… Melie’s sort of won the boys’ support, and then I feel like the girls are a bit biased towards me,” Kerr laughs. “So I feel like each one probably has their favourites, but yeah, being the oldest maybe there’s a little bit of bias towards me. But who knows?”The loyalties won’t be divided for long as the Kerrs unite in India for ODI World Cup glory. Given the older sister’s development, she could now be a regular in the side and perhaps win another title, this time as a playing member. Who knows?