Australia’s women’s cricket team has broken a new record for the longest run of wins in any form of international cricket after beating New Zealand over the weekend.
Australian captain Meg Lanning led her team’s 22nd consecutive ODI victory over New Zealand on Sunday, securing a world record at Mount Maunganui in New Zealand.
Lanning’s team won by six wickets, with Alyssa Healy and Ellyse Perry making half centuries and Ashleigh Gardiner hitting a big six off the final ball to seal the win in 38.3 overs.
“It’s a great achievement from this group over a long period of time,” Lanning said after the match. “Those wins of ours have come over three years, which just shows how consistent we’ve been in this format. It’s certainly a great achievement and something we’ll look back on.”
Australia confined New Zealand to 212 all out, with Megan Schutt taking 4-32 and Nicola Carey 3-34. Schutt took out opener Hayley Jensen with her first ball of the match, following it up by taking out stand-in skipper Amy Satterthwaite (33 runs), Maddy Green (12 runs) and Jess Kerr (3 runs).
Opening batter for New Zealand Lauren Down made an impressive 90 runs off 134 balls before being stumped by Healy off Schutt’s bowling. Katey Martin was run out for one by Jess Jonassen. Schutt took out player of the match.
Speaking with the ABC last week, Australia’s captain Matthew Mott credited all-rounder Ellyse Perry’s reliability to perform in ‘tough’ moments as a huge asset for the team.
“Her innings in the first game when we were in a lot of trouble just shows her class and why she’s been such a great performer over the last decade,” Mott said.
“Traditionally, she’ll bowl in the power plays and in the middle overs for us, but now we’ve also got Megan Schutt, Tayla Vlaeminck and Darcie Brown all targeted for that time, so it’s just put more pressure on those overs at the top.”
“We do a lot of work on match-ups too, so it’s just been unfortunate that Meg’s got seven genuine options with the ball and it hasn’t worked out for her so far.”
Eight series, six opponents, six countries
How Meg Lanning's Australians set a new world record for consecutive ODI wins #NZvAUS https://t.co/pKHkRFvhiP— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) April 4, 2021
Lanning’s team’s winning record overtakes Ricky Pointing’s 2003 men’s team record of 21 consecutive wins — the last time the women’s team lost was more than three years ago, in October 2017. Australia will play again on Wednesday for the second ODI of the series, and Lanning plans to stay with their tried-and-tested formula.
“We like to play an aggressive brand of cricket. That’s natural for a lot of our players,” she told The Australian. “We don’t want to put any hand brakes on at all. We want to go out there and enjoy ourselves and play with freedom.”
The ODI series concludes with two more matches at the Bay Oval in New Zealand this coming Thursday and Saturday.