Vizag, Oct 13 (IANS) Australia captain Alyssa Healy revealed that there was no rigid game plan against Indian bowlers in the ICC Women’s World Cup match on Sunday and stated that with the hosts relying heavily on a five-bowler attack and left-arm spinner Charani proving to be the most effective of the Indian bowlers on the day, her side opted to capitalise on the pace bowlers.

After Annabel Sutherland’s 5-40 helped the seven-time champions fight back after the hosts had found themselves 155 without loss thanks to Pratika Rawal (75) and Smriti Mandhana’s (80) fireworks, and restricted India to 330 in 49 overs.

Chasing 331, Healy blasted a tournament high 142 from 107 deliveries, featuring 21 fours and three sixes, which acted as the catalyst to Australia reaching their target of 331 – the highest successful chase in women’s ODI history.

The record-breaking victory sees the seven-time champions return to the top of the group stage table and Healy was pleased at producing a captain’s knock when her team needed it most.

Speaking about her game plan in the post-match presser, Healy said, “It wasn’t a distinct plan as such. I think Charani was getting actually quite a bit of spin, the left arm spinner. So, she was actually kind of the pick of the bowlers today, and I think we identified that really well and thought if we could capitalise on some of the pace bowlers then that would be handy, knowing they’ve only really got five bowlers in their attack.

“Obviously Harman bowled no overs, we thought if we could attack that that would be great. But it wasn’t really a plan as such. It just sort of panned out that way on the day and I think with the wicket sliding on, it probably enabled us to do,” she said.

Healy scored the third highest score by any captain at any edition of the Women’s World Cup. The only skippers to have bettered her innings of 142 as captain are fellow Australians Belinda Clark (229* against Denmark in 1997) and Meg Lanning (152* versus Sri Lanka in 2017).

Speaking about her century, which was her sixth and first as a skipper, Healy said, “I think I was just trying to contribute. I think it needed somebody to make 100 to chase down that total. Obviously you’d probably like two to make 100 just to make it easy, but somebody needed to, if they got set to cash in and have a good day.

“So it was probably – It was my day in the end. It hasn’t been my day of late, but it was my day today, which was really cool. And to get ourselves, obviously I would have liked to be there a little bit longer and probably see it home a little bit more, but I think to get ourselves in a winning position at that point in time was really cool and I’ll probably reflect on that a little bit later and be a little bit happy.”

–IANS

bc/