Record-breaking Healy powers Australia to clean sweep over Sri Lanka

Alyssa Healy scored an unbeaten 148 – the highest individual score in women’s Twenty20 International cricket – to help Australia register a massive 132-run win in the third and final T20I in Sydney on Wednesday, 2 October.

VIEW MATCH CENTRE

Healy completed her century off just 46 balls, the second-fastest ton in women’s T20Is after West Indies batter Deandra Dottin’s 38-ball hundred against South Africa in the 2010 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup. The wicket-keeper batter smashed 19 hits to the fence and seven over it during her entertaining 61-ball stay at the crease.

Australia scored 55 off the last three overs, including 28 off the 19th, to race to 226/2, their joint-highest total in T20Is.

Rachael Haynes was the other notable contributor, anchoring the innings with a 37-ball 41 as Healy took the attack to the opposition. The duo put on 109 runs from 66 balls, before Haynes’ innings was cut short by skipper Chamari Athapaththu, who was by far the best bowler for the visitors, with returns of 2/27 from her four-over spell. Sri Lanka operated with six other bowlers, but all were at the receiving end of Healy’s stroke-play, none as much as medium-pacer Ama Kanchana, who went for 47 in her two overs.

With an asking rate of 11.35 at the start of the innings, the visitors never really got going – their scoring rate never went beyond run-a-ball at any point in the chase. Megan Schutt castled opener Anushka Sanjeevani in the fourth over of the innings, before Athapaththu and Harshitha Madavi painstakingly put on 46 for the second wicket off 48 balls.

Nicola Carey removed Athapaththu for 31 in the 12th over, before the visitors slipped further to 87/7 in the 18th and subsequently finished at 94/7. With that, Australia completed their second straight series sweep, having trumped West Indies 3-0 last month.

Healy was adjudged the Player of the Match. The two teams will now compete in a three ICC Women’s Championship one-day internationals, the first of which will be played at Brisbane’s Allan Border Field on Saturday, 5 October.

www.icc-cricket.com

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*


This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.