Australia win the series opener by 5 wickets after a great bowling performance by Megan Schutt , Nicola Carey and the two debutants .
Pakistan won the toss in Kuala Lumpur and decided to bat first which was always a wise decision against better opponents.
Young 19 years old Leggie Georgia Wareham from Victoria who recently made her T20 debut against New Zealand on 29th September got the golden opportunity to represent the Kangaroos in the ODI’s , she was awarded for her performance against South Africa U19 in April and recently against the White Ferns.
Another young Victorian prodigy Sophie Molineux made her debut in the match . She is a left handed allrounder and Her performance in 2017 earned her the inaugural Betty Wilson Young Player of the Year award . She made her T20 debut earlier in March against India .
Talking about the match Pakistan openers started well but they lost Ayesha Zafar too early to capitalise on the start. Next batswomen Munneba Ali struggled to rotate the strike which put Nahida under pressure as well . But Megan Schutt ended her innings for 2 runs in the 10th over . Captain Javeria Khan showed some intent to score runs as she take on the debutant Georgia Wareham but it back fired in the 17th over when the debutant got her caught by the hands of Mooney. As a Capatin it is expected from you to not throw away your wicket so cheaply and play holding role so that others can play around her and the team reaches a descent target. The wicket followed by another wicket of Nida Dar and then came the experienced Sana Mir on strike . Wicket kept falling at other end and another debutant Sophie Molineux also got her first wicket ,she bowled the wicket keeper Sirda Nawaz.
Rain interputed the play for 2 hours after the 26th over resulting in deduction of overs.
So in the 41 over encounter when the play resumed Pakistan’s fortune didn’t changed they got all out on 95 in the 38th over. Sana Mir remained notout on 21 off 60.
The target was revised to 92 by DLS method and Australia’s Alyssa Healy and Bolton started the chase in the T20 mode , they were on 40-0 before Nashra Sandhu clean bowled Healy.After this Sana Mir took 3 quick wickets dismissing Bolton , Lanning and Perry to put Autralians on the backfoot for a while but it was not enough to bring them back in the game .Rachel Haynes and Beth Mooney batted according to the situation , the former got out when only 2 runs were needed to win and at the end Mooney finishes with a boundary . So, Australia chased the target in the 22.2 overs only and won the first match of the series with ease .
BRIEF SCORES:
Pakistan Women : 95/10 in 37.2 overs { Javeria Khan 21(27) , Sana Mir 21*(60) ; Megan Schutt 17/3 }
Austrlia Women : 95/5 in 22.2 overs { Alyssa Healy 26(26), Rachel Haynes 24(34) ; Sana Mir 26/3 }
Megan Schutt was adjudged as Player of the Match.
Australia took some crucial ICC women’s championship points , their Middle order which didn’t get tested against New Zealand in T20’s will be keen to show what they got in the longer format . Two debutants Georgia Wareham and Sophie Molineux impressed lot . While Pakistan need to focus on their batting department they should at least make 200 runs to give the Aussies a fight for that Openers and Captain need to take stand while Sana Mir should get opportunity to bat up the order so that team can utilise her experience , whereas their bowling performance was quite admirable.So, Let’s see how they perform in upcoming matches.
Next match will be played on the same ground of Kuala Lumpur on Saturday.