{"id":191370,"date":"2025-10-05T10:38:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-05T10:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/191370\/"},"modified":"2025-10-05T10:38:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-05T10:38:11","slug":"ash-gardner-century-guides-australia-to-win-over-new-zealand-to-start-womens-world-cup-defence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/191370\/","title":{"rendered":"Ash Gardner century guides Australia to win over New Zealand to start Women’s World Cup defence"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/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 number six or below in women’s one-day internationals.<\/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 enable the champions to rack up their highest ODI score against New Zealand.<\/p>\n

New Zealand’s chase could not have started much worse, with both openers out before a run had been scored in the first nine balls, and not even a run-a-ball ton from captain Sophie Devine could save the White Ferns as they were all out for 237.<\/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<\/a> 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 had also dismissed Annabel Sutherland cheaply (5 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 have not 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 was eventually bowled out with three balls left in their innings when Garth holed out to Kerr’s sister Jess, who finished with 3-59.<\/p>\n

When New Zealand came out to bat, things immediately went awry as Sutherland ran out Georgia Plimmer at the end of Garth’s opening over, and Sophie Molineux, playing her first international match of the year, bowled veteran Suzie Bates three balls later with a run yet to be scored.<\/p>\n

Devine stopped the bleeding with a 75-run partnership with Amelia Kerr, but the captain’s 112 off 112 was the only Kiwi score of any note as Amelia Kerr (33), Brooke Halliday (28), Maddy Green (20) and Izzy Gaze (28) got starts before getting out.<\/p>\n

Fittingly, when 36-year-old Devine fell to start the 43rd over, the rest of her teammates followed in a hurry, with the last four wickets falling for just two runs in the space of eight balls.<\/p>\n

As well as the early run out, Sutherland took 3-26, all of them in that 43rd over, and was on a hat-trick after removing Jess Kerr and Eden Carson in successive deliveries.<\/p>\n

She did not get the magic third, which allowed veteran spinner Molineux to come back and have Bree Illing caught behind to end the match with New Zealand’s fourth duck.<\/p>\n

Australia’s next match is against co-hosts Sri Lanka on Saturday in Colombo.<\/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":[564],"tags":[117048,64,63,740,1736,60950,85,21418],"class_list":["post-191370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-50-over","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-new-zealand","tag-odi","tag-sports","tag-world-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191370","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=191370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191370\/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=191370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}