Alyssa Healy has executed brilliant back-to-back hundreds to guide her squad into the semi-finals of the Women's Cricket World Cup, motivating them to a dominant comprehensive win over Bangladesh.
Healy finished not out on 113 runs, coming just a few days after her similarly impressive 142-run knock that saw off hosts India at the same Visakhapatnam venue. This time, she combined in an unbroken 200-run opening partnership with her opening partner (84 not out) to race to their target of 199 in just 24.5 overs.
“I thought I was a little bit poor behind the stumps, and probably a little bit as captain as well tonight, but we’ll take the win and move on,” she said.
Interestingly, the supreme professionalism of Thursday’s chase as the duo added 202 came after possibly Australia’s poorest performance in the fielding department under the captain's stewardship, with the skipper criticizing herself in particular for dropping two of the half-dozen chances that were missed.
“I was a little bit disappointed with my glovework, and I needed to compensate with the batting, and fortunately succeeded,” she added.
From the time data was first taken on fielding metrics in 2013, the half-dozen missed opportunities marked the team's poorest fielding showing at a World Cup tournament.
“Maybe it’s just that time of the tournament – we’ve been here a while, and it’s an issue we’ll review,” the captain said.
It helped Bangladesh to manage 9-198 after they had opted to bat first, their highest score in an ODI against Australia, with a key batter scoring the first fifty ever for the Asian side against the world champions.
But Alana King mesmeric unbroken ten-over bowling performance, in which she claimed two wickets for 18 runs with four maidens, was crucial to ensuring the team's chase wasn’t too challenging.
The Captain Delighted with Victory that Seals Semi-Final Place
The Australian skipper was delighted to learn that the victory, which places her unbeaten team at the top of the group table on nine points after four victories and a abandoned match, guarantees them a place in the last-four. “That's great news,” she said.
The experienced captain raced to her century off just 73 deliveries, the quickest century of the World Cup, and finished with 20 boundaries off the 77 deliveries she confronted as she pulled away from her partner later in the innings after they had gone almost boundary-for-boundary towards their fifties.
The Opener Shines with First Tournament Fifty
The young batter Phoebe Litchfield hit 12 fours and one maximum, reaching to her first tournament half-century off 46 deliveries soon after Healy got there off 43. They went on to achieve the third-highest stand by any Australian duo at a World Cup event.
In the first innings, during the subpar fielding display, Healy dropped the easiest of edges off Darcie Brown and also failed to hold on to a difficult skied one off another bowler. Frustratingly, she also take a clear catch off Brown but failed to review when the official rejected their appeal.
The recalled Darcie Brown bowled the quickest balls at the tournament so far but was still the Aussies’ most expensive bowler, conceding 52 runs without a wicket off her nine overs.
Spinners Thrive as King Leads
Instead, the spinners thrived, led by King, whose performance could have been even more productive if a fielder hadn’t dropped one in the slip cordon.
Other spinners Georgia Wareham (2-22 off seven overs) and Gardner (2-48 off nine) both contributed, while Annabel Sutherland consolidated her standing as the competition's leading wicket-taker with her 2-41, bringing her tally to thirteen.
Rubya Haider’s 44 runs and another's not out 66 runs off 80 deliveries took the team to their record total against the Australians, but the target was made to look straightforward by a team who had successfully pursued 330 against India four days earlier.
“It’s always nice when you’ve got the ‘Q’ beside your name in a World Cup,” remarked player-of-the-match King. “Certainly it won't end here. We look forward to returning to Indore to face the English team and South Africa.”
