Alyssa Healy hammered a 107 ball 129 runs in the opening stand to steer Australia to storm into the final of the ICC Women’s World Cup after defeating West Indies by a massive 157 runs on Wednesday in Wellington, New Zealand.
The Australian women, six times champions and two times runners up of the Women’s Cricket World Cup will play their ninth final against the winners of the second finalists of England and South Africa on April 3 in Christchurch.
The Australian women, having the opportunity to bat first, the opening pair Alyssa Healy and Rachael Haynes laid a solid foundation with a record opening stand 216 runs to amass a massive total of 306 runs. The match was for stipulated 45 overs, as due to rain five overs were reduced.
The opening partnership of Alyssa Healy and Rachael Haynes the highest runs in the tournament scored by any stand when they crossed 196 runs of the Haynes and Meg Lanning’s second wicket against England.
The Australian women, winners of most of the times of the Women’s Cricket World Cup, six, out of 11 of previous editions justified their tag as the favourites when they just outplayed the West Indian to make it easy to secure their place in the final as unbeaten with winning all seven matches. In fact the openers led the team to bring beyond West Indies reach with scoring 216 from 32.4 overs.
Alyssa on her way to score the ton hit 17 fours and a six off 107 balls when her opening partner Rachael Haynes looked a bit patience to score 85 runs from 100 balls with nine fours.
The West Indian bowlers, who looked very helpless, could take only three wickets with Chinelle Henry got two wickets including the most danger bats Alyssa conceding 51 runs in her nine overs spell when Shamilia Connell picked the other for 45 runs in eight overs.
Chasing to a mammoth target the West Indies saw an early blow losing the opener Rashada Williams for a duck playing 10 balls with the scoreboard show 12 runs.
Despite losing the early wickets, opener Deandra Dottin and Hayley Mathews looked a bit hostile when the former scored 34 runs off 34 balls.
After Dottin getting out, captain Stafanie Taylor joined Mathews but the partners also departed within short time when Mathews got out for 34 runs from 45 balls.
Chasing to a huge target Stafanie Taylor, though looked steady and was struggling to build a big partnership in deed but rest of the batters were leaving the crease in regular interval failing to successfully face the combined attacks of Australian bowlers.
The West Indies innings was ended for 148 runs in 37 overs to suffer a humiliating 157 runs defat.
