Sutherland becomes first Australian woman number 5 or below to score a century

Australia were in trouble in the third ODI with the bat after they lost their top four batters for just 78 runs, courtesy of a brilliant eight-over spell from Arundhati Reddy. 

However, Tahlia McGrath’s team made a resounding comeback in the game through a 96-run partnership between Annabel Sutherland and Ash Gardner. Sutherland, especially, was special with the bat and scored 110 off 95 deliveries to take her team to 298/6 despite the mini-collapse in the middle. 

In the process, she became the first-ever Australian woman to score a century in ODIs batting at number five or below. Only eight women in history have achieved this feat in ODI history.

Sutherland didn’t let the Indian captain and bowlers dominate after Reddy’s spell was over and continued to milk the gaps for singles. The boundaries kept flowing at regular intervals, and after a few overs of recuperation, continued the steady run-scoring tempo from the 22nd over, where Minnu Mani dropped a straightforward chance of Sutherland. 

After Gardner was dismissed in the 34th over by Deepti Sharma, Sutherland had a 122-run partnership with McGrath in just 16 overs and took Australia’s score to 298/6 from 78/4. In the process, she completed her second ODI century in the last over with a humungous six over midwicket. 

Meanwhile, the 23-year-old continued to have a great run at the WACA as her Test double hundred (210) against South Africa also came on the same ground. 

Remarkably, the 220 runs that Australia scored after the fall of four wickets are the second most runs scored by a women’s team after the fall of the first four wickets in an ODI. It would have been the highest had they scored three more runs, surpassing their own 224 against India in Mackay in 2021. 

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