Key events
13th over: Australia 131-2 (Mooney 62, Gardner 49)
Heather Siegers returns and Gardner starts aggressively, but she can’t get past the field. Mooney is content with rotating the strike with the run rate already so high. Gardner finishes the over with a four to bring her within touching distance of her half century.
12th over: Australia 122-2 (Mooney 60, Gardner 42)
van den Raad returns for her second over. She restricts well for the first couple of balls, then Gardner absolutely smokes one to the boundary between long on and midwicket. van den Raad fights back with a dot next ball, tidying up her line and length, but then Gardner gets innovative with a ramp for another boundary.
11th over: Australia 110-2 (Mooney 57, Gardner 33)
Silver Siegers resumes and Gardner immediately finds a single through a defensive shot – the Australians are clearly working on a plan of trying to eliminate as many dot balls as possible. A few balls later she top edges one and nearly loses her wicket, but the keeper completely loses sight of it and it falls safely.
10th over: Australia 102-2 (Mooney 52, Gardner 30)
de Lange continues her spell and nearly forces an error from Mooney first ball, but she manages to chip it just over the fielders to fall safely. Next ball she finds the boundary she’s been looking for through a misfield from Silver Siegers, then she turns it around the corner for another four, which brings up both her 50 and the 100 for Australia.
9th over: Australia 90-2 (Mooney 41, Gardner 29)
Another new bowler for the Netherlands with Overdjik entering the attack and Gardner immediately smashing her for six. Next ball she’s nearly out, but Molkenboer drops the catch. Mooney hasn’t seen much strike since Gardner came in, but she makes up for lost time with some nicely played shots, although she can’t find the boundary.
8th over: Australia 78-2 (Mooney 39, Gardner 19)
Caroline de Lange comes on to bowl now – she was the pick of the bowlers against India. Gardner plays a nice shot back over the bowler’s head, but it’s well-fielded on the boundary to stop the four. They dart through for a few singles and then Gardner finds the boundary she was looking for, with a little inside out shot over extra cover.
7th over: Australia 69-2 (Mooney 38, Gardner 11)
Silver Siegers enters the attack now with her quite unusual looking off spin. Mooney takes her for three twos to start the over, but then Siegers gets under her bat and forces a play and miss, which is a little win for her.
6th over: Australia 61-2 (Mooney 31, Gardner 10)
Perry is gone first ball of the over and the Dutch are delighted with two wickets in the power play. They take an early drinks break, which gives the Australians time to regroup and get back on track with a new batter at the crease. Gardner starts with a dot – there’d almost a mix up with the running, but she’s safely in her crease. She threads the needle between the fielders with a nicely timed cut shot, but it can’t quite find the boundary. Then she gets a full toss that she manages to flick away to the the boundary and follows it up with another to finish the powerplay.
WICKET! Perry c Overdjik b H.Siegers 1 (Australia 51-2)
Wow, this is great cricket from the Netherlands! Siegers trips Perry up with her slow pace and gets her hitting straight down the throat of deep midwicket.
5th over: Australia 51-1 (Mooney 31, Perry 1)
Zwilling returns to the attack and Mooney starts with a speedy two, before turning the strike over to Voll. Voll finds yet another boundary through her powerful pull shot and brings up the 50 for Australia in no time at all. But next ball she’s out and Perry joins Mooney at the crease.
WICKET! Voll c Molkenboer b Zwilling 17 (Australia 50-1)
Just as Voll looks to be ramping up the pace, she catches a bottom edge and sends one straight up the air. Molkenboer settles below and takes a very safe catch.
4th over: Australia 43-0 (Mooney 28, Voll 13)
Yet another new bowler, with Myrthe van den Raad coming around the wicket to Voll and starting with a dot. But next ball Voll picks up the length, rocks back and pulls it to the boundary for four. And the following ball she does pretty much the same thing. The Australians are really putting some pressure on the Dutch bowlers. The bowlers just aren’t hitting their lengths here and are bowling too short, which Mooney and Voll are very much enjoying.
3rd over: Australia 28-0 (Mooney 24, Voll 4)
No spells for the Netherlands here, we’ve got a new bowler in the third over, as Isabel van der Woning enters the attack. She starts with a dot, despite Mooney’s shot sounding delightful off the bat. Next ball Mooney finds the gap for another four – she looks like she is keen to make up for missing out on runs against Bangladesh. Next ball is another four, van der Woning needs to problem solve on the go here. The next ball looks better, but there’s a misfield and it’s yet another four for Mooney. Eventually she tidies up and finishes with two much-needed dots.
2nd over: Australia 16-0 (Mooney 12, Voll 4)
Heather Siegers opens from the other end with what is being described as “right arm medium pace” but it is certainly on the very slowest extreme of what you could call medium, at about 77km/hr. Mooney manages a four from the second ball, but Siegers restricts her to three dots early as well, it’s not a style she is used to facing.
1st over: Australia 11-0 (Mooney 7, Voll 4)
Iris Zwilling takes the new ball for the Netherlands, with Mooney on strike. She starts with a strong pull shot, which goes to a fielder in the deep, but they dash up and back for two. She finds a gap next ball for the first boundary of the match. Zwilling tidies up and manages a couple of dot balls, which the Dutch crowd celebrates with the excitement of a wicket. Voll opens her account with a four from the final ball of the over.
The teams are on the field now for the anthems – not long until the first over!
There’s a significant amount of orange in the crowd today – the Dutch will have some great support as they take on the formidable Australian team.
A couple of changes for Australia, with Ash Gardner recovering from her ankle injury to return to the side, replacing Grace Harris, and Lucy Hamilton coming in for Megan Schutt.
Netherlands XI
1. Heather Siegers
2. Phebe Molkenboer
3. Babette de Leede (c) (wk)
4. Sterre Kalis
5. Robine Rijke
6. Frederique Overdijk
7. Iris Zwilling
8. Myrthe van den Raad
9. Silver Siegers
10. Caroline de Lange
11. Isabel van der Woning
Australia XI
1. Beth Mooney (wk)
2. Georgia Voll
3. Ellyse Perry
4. Ashleigh Gardner
5. Georgia Wareham
6. Nicola Carey
7. Annabel Sutherland
8. Sophie Molineux (c)
9. Kim Garth
10. Alana King
11. Lucy Hamilton
The Netherlands win the toss and elect to field
A predictable decision from the underdogs – bowling first gives them their best opportunity to make a game out of this. Will the decision pay off for them? Let’s find out!
Today’s match is at the Rose Bowl and the weather forecast for Southamption is “light cloud and a gentle breeze”, which sounds just delightful.
If you want to refresh your memory about Australia’s last game while we’re waiting for the toss, you can read this great report from the always excellent Geoff Lemon.
Ellyse Perry will play her 5oth T20 World Cup match tonight, which is quite a milestone! She has played in all 10 T20 World Cups and has only missed two matches in that time – the semi final and final of the 2020 edition in Australia.
Don’t forget that you can let me know your thoughts during the game by sending me an email. I’d love to hear from you, whether it’s about this game, another recent game or some tournament predictions!
Preamble
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Megan Maurice
Hello and welcome to another match of definitely my favourite World Cup going on right now. Today we have Australia taking on a very unfamiliar foe in the Netherlands, who are playing in their debut T20 World Cup. In fact, the two teams have never met in the T20 format before. They have played five matches in the ODI format, of which the last one was in 2000, three years before Australia’s opening batter Georgia Voll was born.
So to say the teams are unfamiliar with each other is quite the understatement. Australia is coming off the back of a nine-wicket demolition of Bangladesh, where they chased down the required total in less than 10 overs. Meanwhile, the Netherlands suffered a 95-run loss to India, though there were some bright spots with Babette de Leede scoring a well-made 28 and Caroline de Lange taking two wickets with her off spin.
I’m looking forward to seeing how all this unfolds – while Australia are the firm favourites, I have seen a fair bit of fight in this Dutch side so far and hopefully we get some of that on show today! So settle in and let’s get into the game.
