Opening bat Beth Mooney’s 60 set Australia up, before spinner Ash Gardner defended 20 runs from the final over to land the hosts a Twenty20 World Cup semi-final over New Zealand by four runs in the final pool match for both teams. That was the good news for Australia. The very bad was that star all-rounder Ellyse Perry is likely out of the tournament after leaving the field late in the game with an apparent hamstring strain, after already nursing shoulder and hip complaints.
The virtual quarter-final at Melbourne’s Junction Oval was not quite as close as the scorecard suggests: 155-5 next to 151-7. The Kiwis were out of the chase when they needed 15 runs from the final two deliveries, at which point Katey Martin hit a four and a six that couldn’t change the result. Her closing contribution was 37 from 15 balls.
But New Zealand had been behind the asking rate all day, with Australia’s leg-spinner Georgia Wareham and swing bowler Megan Schutt making timely interventions in the latter half of the innings, after Kiwi captain Sophie Devine had started it far short of her best.
Devine is known in Australia for her devastating innings in the Big Bash League, where in five seasons she has battered over two thousand runs and bombed the grass banks and grandstands with a frankly obscene 88 sixes. After an underwhelming World Cup, though, when the stakes were high, Devine battled to 31 from 36 deliveries, facing 16 dot balls before the one that got her out.
Her partner Rachel Priest initially covered the shortfall, clubbing three early boundaries to push the score to 25, but as happens so often the Australians were able to trip up a partnership using Jess Jonassen. The left-arm spinner did what she always does, bowling a suffocating line on the stumps and straightening the ball from round the wicket: we haven’t seen a Priest trapped so squarely since Thomas Becket.
With Devine joined by Suzie Bates, New Zealand’s two best strikers were at the crease, but they couldn’t get the run rate up around the eight or nine per over that would have kept the pressure low. A combination of Wareham’s slider and Alyssa Healy’s reviewing broke that stand, with Australia’s wicketkeeper convincing her captain to go upstairs when Bates missed a sweep and was struck high but right back in front of her stumps on 14. The video projection showed the ball would have hit the top of middle.
Devine and Maddy Green each hit a six, and Perry’s departure with injury posed a potential headache for Australia’s bowling rotations. But with seven overs left New Zealand were still 75 runs short, and attack was the only way. Wareham returned and anticipated Devine’s charge, bowling a slow leg-break well wide of off stump, turning past the bat for a stumping.
Green and Martin smacked 16 from Nicola Carey, including a simple dropped catch by Schutt at cover, but Wareham replicated her previous dismissal to Green for 28.
Needing 48 off 26 with Martin at the crease, it was still possible for New Zealand if the incoming Amelia Kerr could match her previous innings against India, when she spanked 34 off 19. Not to be, as Schutt made up for the drop by angling a ball into Kerr’s stumps for two, before having Hayley Jensen scuff a drive to Carey at mid-off next ball.
That left 40 needed from three overs, and while Martin tried her best, there were not enough boundary offerings from Jonassen or Schutt, nor from Gardner until it was too late. Given the momentum of the finish, much of the attention had to go back to the start, when the field was up but the run rate wasn’t.
An equal New Zealand regret might be Devine’s decision to bowl first, choosing the pressure of the chase in a knockout match, and giving Australia first bat on a pitch that had seen plenty of traffic. Australia made best use of the invitation, with Mooney’s calm 60 off 50 balls covering for Healy’s chip to the infield.
There was some early pace and bounce in the wicket, with Lea Tahuhu topping 120kph and throwing in one very sharp bouncer, but Mooney was in perfect position to hook it away from grille height for four. Meg Lanning played some postcard shots, driving Devine through cover before cutting and lofting Anna Peterson, but was caught sweeping for 21.
Mooney is not a six-hitter – she cleared the ropes twice in her 743 runs in the last edition of the WBBL – but in this innings the left-hander hit two in five balls, using the angle into her pads of seamer Rosemary Mair from around the wicket, then advancing to Peterson’s off-spin.
Gardner was bowled on 20 trying to lift the rate, with Leigh Kasperek smartly darting a ball through her charge. Mooney was on track for her third six of the day before Bates flew into the frame at long-on for a spectacular leap and catch, while Rachael Haynes whacked an unbeaten 19 from 8 balls, and Perry was bowled for 21 off 15 with one ball to spare.
Wickets had fallen, but the cake had been iced. Sadly for Australia, Perry’s leg would end up being iced as well. The champion all-rounder had to this date played every match for her country at a T20 world tournament, from the very first back in 2009. That run has surely come to an end, and should Australia make the final at the MCG, it will now be a one-Perry affair.
