Alyssa Healy Blasts Another Hundred to Send the Australian Team into World Cup Final Four

The Australian skipper has produced brilliant back-to-back hundreds to lead her team into the semi-finals of the World Cup, driving them to a dominant 10-wicket win over Bangladesh.

Healy finished unbeaten on 113, arriving just a few days after her similarly brilliant 142 that defeated the Indian team at the identical Vizag venue. This time, she shared an unbroken 200-run first-wicket stand with Phoebe Litchfield (84 not out) to chase to their goal of 199 runs in just under 25 deliveries.

“I felt I was a below par behind the stumps, and perhaps a bit as captain as well today, but we’ll accept the two points and move on,” she said.

Ironically, the utmost professionalism of Thursday’s run-chase as the duo put on 202 followed possibly the team's weakest display in the fielding department under Healy’s stewardship, with the skipper criticizing herself in particular for dropping a couple of the six chances that were missed.

“I felt somewhat let down with my glovework, and I needed to compensate with the batting, and fortunately got the job done,” Healy continued.

From the time data was initially recorded on fielding performance metrics in the year 2013, the half-dozen missed catches represented the team's worst fielding showing at a Women’s World Cup.

“Perhaps it’s just that phase of the tournament – we’ve been here a little while, and it’s an issue we’ll analyze,” the captain commented.

It helped the opposition to manage 9-198 after they had chosen to bat, their best-ever total in an One-Day International against the Aussies, with a key batter scoring the first fifty ever for the Bangladeshi team against the world champions.

But the spinner's spellbinding continuous ten-over bowling performance, in which she claimed 2-18 with four maiden overs, was crucial to ensuring the team's target remained manageable.

The Captain Pleased with Victory that Confirms Semi-Final Spot

Healy was delighted to discover that the victory, which puts her undefeated team top of the standings on nine points after four victories and a abandoned match, secures them a place in the last-four. “That’s really cool,” she exclaimed.

The experienced captain sped to her hundred off just 73 deliveries, the quickest century of the tournament, and finished with 20 fours off the 77 balls she faced as she pulled away from Litchfield in the latter stages in the knock after they had gone practically boundary-for-boundary towards their fifties.

Litchfield Shines with First Tournament Fifty

Left-hander Litchfield hit 12 fours and a six, getting to her maiden World Cup fifty off 46 deliveries shortly after her partner reached hers off 43 balls. They went on to achieve the third-highest stand by any Aussie duo at a World Cup event.

Earlier, during the subpar fielding effort, Healy dropped the easiest of edges off Darcie Brown and also failed to grasp a difficult skied one off Annabel Sutherland. Annoyingly, she also take a clear chance off the same bowler but failed to review when the umpire rejected their appeal.

The recalled Darcie Brown sent down the quickest balls at the tournament so far but was still the team's most expensive bowling option, conceding 52 runs without a wicket off her nine overs.

Spinners Thrive as Alana King Stars

Instead, the slow bowlers thrived, spearheaded by King, whose performance could have been more successful if a fielder hadn’t missed one in the slips.

Fellow spinners Wareham (2-22 off seven overs) and Gardner (2-48 off nine overs) both chipped in, while Sutherland strengthened her standing as the competition's top wicket-taker with her two for 41, taking her total to 13.

Rubya Haider’s 44 and another's unbeaten 66 runs off 80 deliveries took Bangladesh to their record score against the Australians, but the target was rendered straightforward by a team who had chased down 330 runs against the Indian side a few days earlier.

“It's fantastic when you’ve got the ‘Q’ beside your name in a World Cup,” remarked player-of-the-match Alana King. “Certainly it doesn’t stop here. We anticipate going back to Indore to face England and South Africa.”

Samantha Rodriguez
Samantha Rodriguez

Lena Voss is a full-stack developer and writer who advocates for minimalist tech stacks.