Beth Mooney’s masterful century rescued Australia from one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history and set up an ultimately resounding 107-run victory over Pakistan.<\/p>\n
The defending champions were floundering at 76-7 against Pakistan’s spinners but the unflappable Mooney hit 109 to drag her side to 221-9, turning a day that could have been about exposed Australian frailties into a clear example of why they are huge favourites to secure an eighth title. <\/p>\n
The left-hander was the latest member of Australia’s vaunted batting line-up to step up, repelling Pakistan as they sensed the most significant victory in their history. <\/p>\n
Mooney initially halted the tumble of wickets in a patient partnership of 39 from 75 balls with bowler Kim Garth in the Colombo heat and then put on 106 from 97 balls with number 10 Alana King. <\/p>\n
King made 51 not out – her first international fifty – as the pair steered Australia away from danger and then struck a flurry of boundaries to take 59 runs from the last five overs.<\/p>\n
Faced with a target far greater than they had at one time expected and one always likely to be beyond their limited line-up, Pakistan crumbled to 49-6 before resisting for 36.3 overs to be 114 all out.<\/p>\n
They now have three defeats from three at this World Cup while Australia go top of the standings with a second win to go with a washout.<\/p>\n
England and India have also made unbeaten starts to this tournament but it appears one of Australia’s world-class talents will always deliver when needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Beth Mooney’s masterful century rescued Australia from one of the biggest shocks in World Cup history and set…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":186427,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-186426","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=186426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186426\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/186427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=186426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=186426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=186426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}