Australia beat Bangladesh in third women’s one-day international by eight wickets – as it happened

27 Mar 202403.31 EDT

Summary

Megan Maurice

Well, that’s all from this ODI series – I was expecting to be keeping you all company until a fair bit later into the night, but it looks like we all get a cricket early mark. Use it wisely – go outside and take in the last of the light (or the first of it if you’re in a different part of the world!) It hasn’t been the most closely contested series, but perhaps T20 might provide a bit more of an equaliser – Australia continue to be so dominant in the ODI format, but the proliferation of T20 leagues around the world has given more players the opportunity to play in that format more often.

The first T20 will be played on 31 March from 5pm AEDT, so that’s a nice way to spend your Easter Sunday evening, especially if you’re lucky enough to have the public holiday Monday off.

I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s match, as short as it was, and I look forward to keeping you company for a cricket game again very soon!

Alyssa Healy collects the trophy for the ODI series and speaks glowingly about the series so far.

“It’s been fantastic to come over here and get to play against a side we don’t play against very often outside of World Cups,” she says.

She acknowledges that they still have some areas to work on, but is happy with her team’s performance across the ODI series.

Gardner was the highest wicket taker across the season and was handy with the bat as well – a good choice for the player of the series.

“Bangladesh have challenged us at different points throughout the series and we’re getting used to the conditions here,” she says. “It naturally spins a lot more in the subcontinent and it’s a lot slower than we’re used to. As a batting unit it’s about overcoming that and having clear plans when we come out to bat.”

The former Ireland international wins the big cheque for her figures of 3-11 and the sound comes back!

“It was really nice to get out there today and find some rhythm,” she says. “As a group we bowled really well and it was nice to get the job done. Very different conditions to what we’re used to, but a really good opportunity for us.”

Some post match comments from Nigar Sultana Joty, the Bangladesh captain, but unfortunately the sound has dropped out from this Bangladesh Cricket YouTube feed, so I can’t tell you what they are. We did get a few words before we lost sound and she said that she felt like her team was on the back foot from the start.

Just not enough runs on the board for Bangladesh today. Their bowling has definitely been their strength in this series, but they didn’t give themselves a target to bowl at. They can take some solace from the wickets they took – especially the way they have been able to contain Litchfield in this series. But disappointing that they weren’t able to make a game out of it.

For Australia’s part, they will not be happy about those two wickets, despite the easy win. It was an excellent bowling performance from them, but they will be hoping to make better starts with the bat in the T20 series.

“The bowlers certainly set the game up for us,” Beth Mooney said in the post-match interview. “They’re pretty tough conditions over here to be a batter…you really have to be disciplined as a batter and be making good decisions all the time.”

19th over: Australia 93-2 (Mooney 21, Perry 27) Marufa gets her first over and this is an even worse time to be thrown in. Strange call from Joty. She’s got great speed and starts with a dot, but there’s not much she can do to stop Perry and Mooney and a single followed by a four sees the game come to a very premature end.

18th over: Australia 88-2 (Mooney 20, Perry 23) A beautiful shot down the ground from Mooney to start the over, she charges down the pitch at Sultana and plays it perfectly. Fahima is bowling her first over of the match – what a time to be thrown in! Mooney finishes the over with a nice pull shot, but it’s straight to the fielder and she can’t finish the match off just yet.

17th over: Australia 81-2 (Mooney 14, Perry 22) Australia are creeping very close to this total now, but Perry looks wary of losing her wicket and keeps things simple with a single. Mooney has no such concerns and pulls one hard past deep midwicket for another boundary – a one bounce four. Both players are looking completely in control out there.

16th over: Australia 73-2 (Mooney 8, Perry 20) Sultana returns for her second spell and Mooney is on strike to start the over. She plays the first ball along the ground straight back to Sultana. Then she sees an opportunity and follows Perry’s lead with a cut shot past deep point for four. Sultana is finding some good turn in the pitch, but Mooney is watchful and isn’t being drawn into any traps.

15th over: Australia 67-2 (Mooney 2, Perry 20) Perry finds the boundary yet again with her cut shot, she’s just finding so much space on her back foot and hitting the gaps in the field time and again. Mooney is having a bit more trouble finding the gaps, but she picks up another single to end the over.

14th over: Australia 61-2 (Mooney 1, Perry 15) Perry keeps things moving with another great cut shot past deep cover for four. She follows it up with a quick single to get Mooney on strike. Despite the run rate ticking by at a very good clip, Australia will be disappointed to have lost those two wickets. Mooney gets off the mark and Perry finds some more space with her cut shot to finish the over.

13th over: Australia 54-2 (Mooney 0, Perry 9) Healy has slowed down since Perry arrived at the crease, happy to let her teammate take strike and work her way into the game. Rabeya is finding good lengths here and forcing Healy into defensive mode. It’s a good tactic because soon Rabeya gets her LBW and Mooney comes to the crease. A wicket maiden for Rabeya.

Healy was playing defensively, which is always a little bit of a danger sign for her and Rabeya hits her line and length to get Healy LBW and she has to go.

12th over: Australia 54-1 (Healy 33, Perry 9) A beautiful cut shot from Perry to start this over and no one is stopping that from flying to the boundary for four. Nearly a huge mix up when Perry runs through for a regulation single, but Healy is ball watching and doesn’t even start running and Perry has to dash back! She’s safe, luckily.

11th over: Australia 50-1 (Healy 33, Perry 5) Rabeya continues and Healy hits a big shot to start, but it’s just a single. Perry is playing patiently and waiting for her opportunities to come. There is so much experience at the crease for Australia at the moment between Perry and Healy. They will want to finish this off without losing another wicket.

10th over: Australia 48-1 (Healy 32, Perry 4) Healy finally gets the strike back and is very close to being out on the second ball, as it looks to graze the edge of her bat and pop up to Joty, who can’t hold it. She drives it safely down the ground for a single to give the strike back to Perry. There’s a little bottom edge from Perry, but it evades the slip and runs down to third and she picks up another two. There’s a muted appeal for LBW on the last ball of the over, but no one is too interested in it.

9th over: Australia 45-1 (Healy 31, Perry 2) Litchfield finds her first boundary with her trademark reverse sweep that shows off her hockey background. But next ball she gets complacent and has to go, which unfortunately for Bangladesh brings Perry to the crease. She takes a couple of balls to get a look at the bowling and finishes the over with a nice drive to long on for two.

Just when Litchfield was getting going, she throws away her wicket, paddling one straight back to the bowler for a simple catch. She’ll be disappointed with that effort.

8th over: Australia 39-0 (Healy 31, Litchfield 8) Australia is already well over a third of the way to their target – Healy clearly wants to get this done quickly. Litchfield starts the over with a two – her first runs since the third over. Rabeya is bowling her first over of the day and her line seems to be bothering Litchfield a bit less than the previous bowlers. She’s finding plenty of space for her back foot shots and is starting to penetrate the field at last.

7th over: Australia 34-0 (Healy 31, Litchfield 3) Healy is not having the same difficulties as Litchfield – she starts the over by smashing two fours – both pulled through deep square leg. She takes a ball to catch her breath, then goes even harder with a six, driven hard over long off. She’s in some kind of a mood today!

6th over: Australia 20-0 (Healy 17, Litchfield 3) Healy gets Litchfield back on strike early in the over, but the youngster is struggling to find runs here. Let’s see if she can find her way into the game.

5th over: Australia 19-0 (Healy 16, Litchfield 3) Healy starts this over with a huge six straight down the ground and back over the bowler Sultana’s head. She then takes a quick single to keep the strike rotating, but Litchfield isn’t finding scoring as easy so far. She goes for a huge reverse sweep and is nearly caught – that settled start is starting to look a little more rocky as the overs tick by. She plays a couple of more conventional shots, but can’t find a gap in the field.

4th over: Australia 12-0 (Healy 9, Litchfield 3) Nahida continues with her spell and on the second ball of the over, Healy steps on to her back foot and cuts the ball beautifully, finding the gap and sending it racing through cover to the boundary for four. She then takes a quick single to give Litchfield back the strike. Nahida is finding a better line to the left hander and Litchfield can’t find any runs to finish the over. It appears there’s an edge on the final ball of the over, but Joty can’t hold the catch or collect the ball cleanly for the stumping. Litchfield survives.

3rd over: Australia 7-0 (Healy 4, Litchfield 3) Sultana resumes, coming around the wicket to Litchfield, who is looking more settled than she has in the previous two games – she isn’t forcing anything through, she’s looking for her opportunities and runs a nice two when she gets the chance. It’s the only runs for the over though.

2nd over: Australia 5-0 (Healy 4, Litchfield 1) Now Litchfield gets her first opportunity of the day and she gets off the mark immediately to Nahida by playing it neatly to short midwicket and dashing through for a single. Healy looks much more like herself, with a big sweep shot for four from her first ball faced this over. She goes back into defensive mode and blocks out the rest of the over.

1st over: Australia 0-0 (Healy 0, Litchfield 0) The chase is underway! Healy and Litchfield stride out to the middle and Sultana Khatun takes the new ball for Bangladesh. There’s an appeal for LBW against Healy on the first ball of the over, but the umpire isn’t interested. It’s a settled start from Healy, she’s content to defend for now, which is unusual for her. There’s another LBW appeal later in the over, but no luck on that one either. Sultana starts with a maiden.

One player I’ll be looking at very closely in this chase is Phoebe Litchfield. The 20-year-old has scored only five runs so far on this tour and she will be desperately wanting to make a decent score here. She has an average of 42.66 in ODIs, but she hasn’t been doing that average any favours recently. Litchfield won’t have a chance to beat her high score of 119 today, but she can bat at about her average if she plays her cards right. Finishing not out would also be an aim for her to show she can thrive under Bangladeshi conditions before September’s World Cup.

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27 Mar 202401.40 EDT

Megan Maurice

Thanks Jo! A very impressive OBO debut – especially with those constantly falling wickets. It will be interesting to see the way Australia approach this chase. They have been guilty of giving away wickets at the top of their innings, so will they try to take a more slow and steady approach to make sure the openers settle in? Or are they going to look to play aggressively and chase the total down as quickly as possible? The answer probably lies somewhere in the middle – with a World Cup in Bangladesh approaching, they will likely have some match scenarios they want to experiment with and this could be a good opportunity to test how they react to a small chase.

27 Mar 202401.34 EDT

Jo Khan

Well that was a bit of a whirlwind for me on my first cricket blog I must admit! Australia’s domination = wickets falling quickly = Jo typing frantically. Bangladesh were just never able to get going, although we saw some nice shots towards the end there, shame there weren’t more. The question now is how many overs it will take for Australia to chase that down…

I’ll leave you with Megan Maurice to find out the answer to that. Thanks.

Just as Sultana and Marufa were getting going it’s all over. Australia had no issue picking up wickets but did give up 20 extras in that innings which is not ideal.

I spoke to soon, sorry Bangladesh. Sultana hits straight to Harris at cover and that’s that.

26th over: Bangladesh 88-9 (Sultana 10, Marufa 14)

10 runs from Molineux’s over. Marufa mishits the first towards long off and they are able to run three. Lovely drive from Sultana finds the gap at deep cover and goes for four. Sultana plays to fine leg for two runs to end the over, these two are looking good!

25th over: Bangladesh 78-9 (Sultana 4, Marufa 11) Marufa is enjoying herself! She smacks Gardner down the ground for four, then sweeps to square leg. And how about another boundary to finish – Sultana this time drops the knee and hits it back over the bowler’s head again.

24th over: Bangladesh 69-9 (Sultana 0, Marufa 6) After surviving a possible stumping, Marufa thumps it high over mid-on and it falls safely, they run two. Mis-field from Harris on the final ball allows Bangladesh to run three more. Relatively expensive in the context of this match.

23rd over: Bangladesh 64-9 (Sultana 0, Marufa 1) Shorna survived a catching chance after hitting it straight up but it fell just short of Alana King. But then she’s caught the next ball anyway and the misery continues for Bangladesh. Marufa gets a single to end the over.

Not totally clear if that actually hit the bat but Shorna is given out after her edge pops up to Litchfield at short leg.

22nd over: Bangladesh 60-8 (Shorna 6, Sultana 0) Another solid over from Molineux with just one run from it and a wicket.

The Bangladesh vice-captain comes to the crease next and trots down the wicket only to miss. An easy stumping for Healy.

21st over: Bangladesh 59-7 (Rabeya 0, Shorna 6) I was in the midst of writing that it was better over from the two young Bangladesh players in the middle … but then Rabeya hit a sole boundary and then departed and Shorna nearly followed.

Rabeya goes to sweep but misses and the ball smacks her square on the pad. Gardner’s tally as leading wicket-taker increases.

20th over: Bangladesh 54-6 (Rabeya 0, Shorna 6) Another good over from Molineux with Rabeya defending cautiously. It’s like Bangladesh can’t decide now whether to be cautious or not.

19th over: Bangladesh 54-6 (Rabeya 0, Shorna 6) Gardner starts with a wide followed by six dots. Shorna shows a bit of intent with a tentative step down the wicket but can’t find any gaps in the close field.