At last a wicket. Haynes out for 68 (93) with the score on 160 (29.1) trying to hit Ecclestone over the top and only succeeding in lobbing the ball up to Beaumont at point. Healy (87 off 84) is looking in ominous form and with the likes of Lanning and Mooney being held back, Australia have opted to keep the pressure up by sending Mooney in early.
Healy reaches her ton off exactly 100 balls with the score on 188-1 off 34.2 with husband Mitchell Starc watching. The Aussies will be disappointed if they don't get 325 from here.
Katherine Brunt has had a great career but it is probably now time for her to hang her boots up. Her figures for this WC are 63.5-8-304-4 and all bar one of those wickets came in one match against Pakistan.
Ecclestone returns figures of 1-71 which is only marginally better than her 0-77 in the Group stage earlier on in the tournament.
Ecclestone's figures in this WC against Australia 20-0-148-1. Against the rest of the teams it is 64.3-12-172-20. That says as much about the Aussie superiority in this tournament as it does about Ecclestone's ability.
Sciver's 142* is the 3rd highest in a WC Final for both men and women with Healy's earlier 170 being the highest. Sandwich between them is Gilchrist's 149*.
285 all out. Australia win by 71 runs. Feel sorry for Sciver who batted superbly for her 148* but five other players got into the 20s and didn't kick on.
Australia have now won 38 of their last 39 matches. That is the standard.
We knew going into this we were up against the best team in the world, by a large margin. We were always going to need a healthy amount of luck to be in with a chance and we didn't get it. From what the BBC radio commentators were saying after the game, we're playing catch-up as we've only jut introduced full-time professionalism with the hundred (I'd thought the previous women's T20 competition had been pro, but apparently not). Australia were several years ahead of us and the way it was being described it sounds like their individual states have the sort of coaching setup that everyone else has for their international side.
The good news is that, after a bad start, we showed we're the best of the rest and hopefully we can catch up. We'll need to have more women's cricket being played so as to have a wider pool to select from, but women's cricket has lots of advantages compared to other women's team sports in terms of funding available and willingness of spectators to pay to watch. The challenge is finding a new generation of players for the next world cup. If we can do that, and if we can get the funding together to play more 50 over cricket instead of just T20 and the Hundred, I'm optimistic that we can begin to close the gap.
Comments
297-1 off 44
315-1 off 45
12-1
38-2 off 6.3
86-3 off 15
213-8
Australia have now won 38 of their last 39 matches. That is the standard.
The good news is that, after a bad start, we showed we're the best of the rest and hopefully we can catch up. We'll need to have more women's cricket being played so as to have a wider pool to select from, but women's cricket has lots of advantages compared to other women's team sports in terms of funding available and willingness of spectators to pay to watch. The challenge is finding a new generation of players for the next world cup. If we can do that, and if we can get the funding together to play more 50 over cricket instead of just T20 and the Hundred, I'm optimistic that we can begin to close the gap.