A collective bowling effort from Australia, led by Alana King (2/18) restricted Bangladesh to 198, which the seven-time champions chased down within 25 overs to register a massive 10-wicket win, which sealed their place in the knockout stages. Australia’s captain Healy scored back-to-back World Cup hundreds with an unbeaten 113 in Visakhapatnam as she and Phoebe Litchfield, who made an unbeaten 84.
Healy and Litchfield’s exploits saw Australia retake top spot in the group stage table and also broke the record for the highest successful ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup chase without losing a wicket.
But it was the bowling that set up the win, as King showed how Australia’s depth of resources is vastly superior to other sides. Having been brought into the attack fairly late against India, Healy opted to use King for 10 overs on the trot from Overs 17 to 35, unchanged as she spun a web around the Bangladesh batters.
“I obviously am not aware of when bowlers are going to bowl and I actually don’t know when I’m going to bowl,” King said in the post-match press conference when asked about the thinking being how she was employed in the attack today. “Our skipper has a great instinct on when to bowl players and when to bring the best out of them. I think every bowler is equipped to bowl at any stage of the game. That’s the beauty of our bowling depth. We’ve got anyone to come on at any given time to try and make an impact, but I don’t think we need to read too much into where people are bowling. I think the skipper’s got the best seat in the house and is going to see what’s going to be best or what’s going to be the hardest for the batters to face.
King, who got the ball to talk with her ripping leg spin right through the afternoon, said the plan to force Bangladesh batters to play shots they are not comfortable with. “I was just trying to extract as much as I can with my best ball and probably going up and down the gears of the pace and we know that Bangladesh are quite good against spin. They play quite square off the wicket, so also just challenging them on the front foot is what I was trying to extract and having some batters in their eye line to see if they’re going to play a different shot, but kept my plan pretty simple. I didn’t want to get too bold and we spoke about that as a bowling unit; we wanted to be really disciplined in the length that we’re trying to bowl and force them to play a different shot that they’re not comfortable with.”
Fargana Hoque got Bangladesh’s innings off to a good start after they won the toss and chose to bat as the openers put on 32 for the first wicket. Megan Schutt (1/11) and Darcie Brown bowled well and saw the ball regularly fly through the slip cordon with Rubya Haider dropped on 22 by Litchfield.
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The end of the ninth over saw Australia make the breakthrough as Schutt found Fargana’s outside edge and Beth Mooney took a good catch to her right in the slips. Rubya was dropped again the very next ball – this time by Healy – but kicked on after that with back-to-back fours at Annabel Sutherland’s expense in the 16th over, taking her to 40 and the score to 67 for one.
But the 28-year-old fell on 44 shortly after as she could only find Tahlia McGrath at mid-on when trying to slog Ash Gardner (2/48) Sharmin Akhter’s dismissal was a carbon copy of Rubya’s to hand Gardner her second wicket before Nigar Sultana Joty was stumped by Healy after being deceived by King’s tossed up delivery. From there, the Australian bowlers turned the screw as the wicket of Shorna Akter, whose unbeaten 51 from 35 balls almost guided the Tigresses to victory over South Africa last time out, triggered a collapse.
Alana King celebrates with Australia teammates after taking the wicket of Bangladesh’s Shorna Akter during the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup match between Australia and Bangladesh at ACA–VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam. (AP Photo)
The combination of King and Mooney accounted for the 18-year-old and Georgia Wareham (2/22) and Sutherland (2/41) then tore through Bangladesh’s lower order. The duo picked up two wickets apiece as Ritu Moni, Fahima Khatun, Rabeya Khan and Nishita Akter Nishi all went cheaply. Resistance came in the form of Sobhana Mostary, who played brilliantly for her unbeaten 66 and her late boundary hitting was crucial to her country setting a respectable target. But chase was a mere formality.
King was full of praise for Healy’s batting too who has now hit back-to-back centuries twice at the ODI World Cups. “Just incredible to see what she’s done, first of all do it against India in India was massive and she was pretty bloody determined to do so,” King explained. “But then to not let the foot off the throat and do it against tonight, I guess just shows where her mindset’s at. And she’s hitting the ball beautifully and to have Phoebe down the other end in tandem, hitting the ball as clean as I’ve seen her and, and to chase down a pretty big total, none down. I think that’s something that, that’s going to ooze confidence in our whole lineup, I guess. But yeah, pretty pumped for Midge to hit back-to-back hundreds and also great to see Phoebes amongst the runs as well. I know she’s pretty hard on herself, but I think tonight’s going to do her a world of good. And no doubt we’ve got some pretty happy campers in our team at the moment.”
