Australian women’s cricket team regain No.1 spot

Australia’s women’s cricket team have reclaimed the No.1 spot on the ICC world rankings after Alyssa Healy’s maiden ODI century helped Australia to a 97-run win and 3-0 series whitewash against India on Sunday.

Captain Meg Lanning elected to bat after winning the toss and Australia set the pace with an innings of 7-332. Healy managed to dig in after quickly losing fellow opener Nicole Bolton (11) and then Meg Lanning (18), reaching 133 off 115 balls before being caught off a Poonam Yadav delivery. Rachael Hayes’ 43 and a rapid 34 from Beth Mooney helped push Australia over 300.

India made a fast start to their chase, reaching 0-101 before two wickets in as many balls to Ashleigh Gardner (3-40). Jess Jonassen and Nicola Carey then claimed the key wickets of Mithali Raj (21) and Harmanpreet Kaur (25).

Although Deepti Sharma (37) and Sushma Verma (29) did their best, the tail was ably cleaned up by Megan Schutt (2-54) and Ellyse Perry (2-40).

Following series win, Australia returns to Mumbai for the Twenty20 tri-series with England and India, which starts on Mar.22.

This post was published on March 19, 2018 6:16 pm