Australia Sweep Pakistan with 89 – Run Win, read the headline that caught our eye.
What’s this then?
Most of the cricket news that comes our way involves players getting into pub brawls, applying abrasive substances to balls, chasing impossible targets in lost causes or manifesting brain fades that would be unimaginable from the greenest of the green.
Turns out that the headline was making reference to the Aussie women cricketers, who sent the Pakis crawling off in disgrace after losing all three one day international matches to Australia in Kuala Lumpur.
Open Alyssa Healy led the charge in the third match, posting a 97, that if it were us, would have us tearing out what remaining hair we have over the three runs we lacked to score the ton.
Australia won the toss and elected to bat and in so doing, put up a 7 – 324 target.
Healy smashed 14 fours and 2 sixes and recorded her 97 from 75 balls.
That is the sort of efficiency we would like to see from the other gender, or even something simply approaching that efficiency.
Diana Baig was the bowler responsible for retiring Healy, but Ellyse Perry added 32 with a display of extreme patience, followed by Rachael Haynes’ 30 and Beth Mooney’s 38.
Number 7 Ashleigh Gardner, clonked 62 not out from just 37 balls, tallying six fours and three sixes.
The story of Pakistan was the exact opposite.
They struggled merely to average beyond five runs an over over the course of their innings and the target may as well have been the moon. Only Aliya Riaz topped 50 runs.
The two sides have completed 50-over play and will now stage three T20s in Kuala Lumpur.
We pledge not to get caught unawares again, even though it might be a dangerous assumption to see Australia on top and conclude that it had to be the women once again.
