Australia successfully chased down a score of 257 courtesy a century from Australia Women’s team captain, Meg Lanning. She broke the record for the fastest 11 centuries in ODI cricket when she reached the milestone in just her 59 international innings. She scored a match winning 158 against the Sri Lanka Women’s team in the group stage of the World Cup. Hashim Amla held the record for the fastest to reach 11 hundreds after he broke Kohli’s record of 82. South Africa’s Quinton de Kock stood second on the list when he took 65 innings to get there.
Australia won their second consecutive match in the World Cup after they had defeated the West Indies women in their first contest. Being a young captain of the side she has already achieved many a milestone in her career. Making her debut in 2011, against England she became the youngest Australian ever to score an ODI century at the age of 19 in just her second match. Also, she has to her credit of becoming the youngest Australian captain at the age of 21.
Being compared to the fellow ‘women’ cricketers is like history for this woman as some of her records like this one surpass the Men’s records. She has scored a 45-ball hundred against New Zealand which is the fastest by any Australian man or woman. She is also the second youngest player to score a century in the World Cup after England’s Charlotte Edwards. Also, the record for the most ODI centuries is in her name.
The Sri Lankan fans saw a heroic effort from the Lankan women, Chamari Atapattu who scored an unbeaten 178 to help her side reach the total. Unfortunately, her efforts went in vain after Meg Lanning’s well-paced innings to see the Aussies through. Atapattu set a record of single-handedly making 69.2% of the team’s runs.
Australia’s batting performance all round the tournament in both the matches has been magnificent. As is what the case with the Indian side. Both teams are being considered as the favorites as Australia has won the last 6 of the 10 ICC Women’s competitions and India is seeing a rising set of talent budding under the guidance of the renowned Mithali Raj.
