Australia has survived a dreadful collapse to claim a tense two-wicket victory over New Zealand in the opening Twenty20 International at North Sydney Oval.<\/p>\n
The reigning T20 World Cup champions won with seven balls to spare, scoring 8-165 in reply to New Zealand’s 2-162 on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
Number 10 Kim Garth faced eight balls without scoring before hitting a boundary to give Australia a 1-0 lead in the three-match Rose Bowl series, with the remaining matches at North Sydney Oval on Tuesday and Thursday.<\/p>\n
Australia overcame the early LBW loss of Georgia Voll and were charging towards victory when star veteran Beth Mooney and Ellyse Perry were involved in a dreadful mix-up.<\/p>\n
They had taken the score to 86 in just 8.2 overs when Mooney was struck on the pad and charged off for the most ambitious of runs.<\/p>\n
Perry sent her back, Mooney was slow to turn, and was run out well short of her ground.<\/p>\n
The loss of Mooney for 38 from just 25 balls prompted a collapse.<\/p>\n
Perry raced to her equal fastest T20 half century in just 27 balls but on 52 dragged a short ball from Jess Kerr to deep backward square, where she was well caught by Issy Sharp running to her right.<\/p>\n
Georgie Wareham (10 from 7 balls) sliced a leg-spinner and Kerr’s younger sister Amelia straight to point.<\/p>\n
Ash Gardner (23 from 17) gave Jess Kerr her third wicket on review and Annabel Sutherland (9 from 5 balls) became her fourth, pulling a short ball to deep square leg.<\/p>\n
Nicole Cary (4 from 3 balls) was run out by the recalled Tahlia McGrath and when captain Sophie Molineux (11 from 5 balls) fell, Australia had lost 7-62.<\/p>\n
But the home side hung on for their 11th T20 win in a row, while the White Ferns have now lost six of their past nine matches.<\/p>\n
Not even a record partnership and a record-equalling total in Australia could secure New Zealand victory.<\/p>\n
After a difficult start by the White Ferns, Georgia Plimmer and Maddy Green combined for an unbeaten 127 in 80 balls.<\/p>\n
Plimmer made a career-high 85 off 68 balls and Green 56 from 37 balls.<\/p>\n
It was a breakout innings for the 22-year-old Plimmer, her fourth T20 half-century in 54 matches for New Zealand.<\/p>\n
Going into the game she had an average of 16 and a strike rate of 104.<\/p>\n
She was the beneficiary of two difficult chances, a stumping and catch from wicketkeeper Beth Mooney standing up to seamers Sutherland and Hamilton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australia has survived a dreadful collapse to claim a tense two-wicket victory over New Zealand in the opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":932758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[5844,64,63,70066,499663,740,47934,499662,46738,56023,85,23287],"class_list":["post-932757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-abc-sport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-vs-new-zealand","tag-australias-womens-cricket-team","tag-cricket","tag-ellyse-perry","tag-georgia-plimmer","tag-kim-garth","tag-north-sydney-oval","tag-sports","tag-t20"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932757","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=932757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/932757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/932758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=932757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=932757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=932757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}