All-rounder Ash Gardner has made a landmark century for Australia at the start of their World Cup defence in India, helping the champions sidestep trouble and put a formidable 326 on the board against New Zealand in Indore.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not only did Gardner become the first Indigenous player to hit a century for Australia in any 50-over World Cup but it was also the highest innings by any batter coming in at No.6 or below in women’s One Day Internationals (ODI).<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old came to the crease at Holkar Stadium with Australia in a little bit of strife at 4-113, delivering an innings of huge maturity and confidence, reaching her century off 77 balls and eventually getting to 115 off 83, with 16 fours and a six, to \u00a0enable the champions to rack up their highest ODI score against New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Gardner got valuable support from Tahlia McGrath (26 off 34) and from No.9 Kim Garth, whose 38 off 37 balls once again demonstrated the depth of the Australian side.<\/p>\n
Having decided to bat on a lightning fast surface, Alyssa Healy started off in electric fashion with Phoebe Litchfield but the captain got out for 19 off 17 deliveries as she slashed at a wide ball and got caught in the covers.<\/p>\n
Litchfield looked superb as she raced past 1,000 ODI runs, cracking 45 off 31 balls, including a couple of powerful sixes, before she was undone by Amelia Kerr’s first ball, a beauty of a googly that ripped past the left-hander and clipped her off-stump.<\/p>\n
It was a fitting way for Kerr (2-54) to celebrate her 100th ODI wicket and after she’d also got rid of Annabel Sutherland cheaply (five off 8), while teammate Lea Tahuhu (3-42) picked up the key veterans, Ellyse Perry (33 off 41) and Beth Mooney (12 off 21), New Zealand began to dream of a breaking a horror run.<\/p>\n
They haven’t beaten Australia in 15 ODIs stretching back eight years but when they were in a fine position at 5-128, Gardner wrested control from them, enjoying a 64-run partnership alongside McGrath, a 48-run stand with Sophie Molineux (14 off 19) and 69 with Garth.<\/p>\n
Australia were eventually bowled out with three balls left in their innings when Garth holed out to Kerr’s sister Jess Kerr, who finished with 3-59.<\/p>\n
AAP\/ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All-rounder Ash Gardner has made a landmark century for Australia at the start of their World Cup defence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[117048,64,63,740,1736,44,60950,21418],"class_list":["post-182880","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-50-over","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-odi","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}