Beth Mooney had a personal milestone to cherish on Thursday (October 17) as Australia got knocked out of the ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2024 after their eight-wicket loss to South Africa in the first semifinal at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium (DICS).
The southpaw became the fastest player to score 3000 runs in Women's T20Is as she shattered Stafanie Taylor's all-time record.
Mooney scaled the milestone in her 100th T20I innings and took three innings less to move past the former West Indies skipper.
Mooney is also the fastest to the milestone in terms of time. She completed 3000 runs in the shortest format of the game in just eight years and 265 days. Earlier, her teammate and former Australia captain Meg Lanning had reached the milestone in 11 years and 21 days.
However, Mooney couldn't make it special as Australia failed to defend their title and got knocked out of the tournament. Mooney played a decent knock scoring 44 off 42 balls and ensured Australia didn't lose too many wickets in the middle overs after losing two inside the powerplay.
But the Australian innings lacked the firepower needed to post a huge total on the board after being sent in by the South Africans in the middle of the Ring of Fire.
Australia could only manage 134 for the loss of five wickets and South Africa chased it down with 16 balls and eight wickets to spare.
Australia's stand-in captain Tahlia McGrath was bitterly disappointed with the outcome and accepted that they were "outplayed" by the Proteas in the knockout clash.
"It's going to be pretty hard to take. We just didn't really show up tonight. You can't afford to do that in tournaments like this. Full credit to South Africa. They outplayed us tonight," McGrath said in the post-match presentation.
