It was an Ellyse Perry show at the Allan Border Field in Brisbane as Australia swatted India aside with the bat in hand on Sunday, December 8. Perry stitched a 92-run partnership for the second wicket alongside the 21-year-old rookie Georgia Voll, who smashed her maiden ODI century in just her second international game for Australia and then went on to complete her hundred as well off just 72 balls as the hosts made a mockery of Indian bowling attack, that just looked insipid right from the outset.
Perry on her way to her third ODI hundred became only the fourth Australian woman cricketer to complete more than 4,000 runs in ODIs after Karen Rolton, Belinda Clark and former skipper Meg Lanning. During her innings, after scoring just 13 runs, Perry also became the first cricketer in women's cricket history to complete a double of 7,000 runs in international cricket (928 runs in Tests and 2,088 in T20Is) and 300 wickets across formats (165 in ODIs, 126 in T20Is and 39 in Tests.)
Perry didn't bowl in the second ODI as she wasn't required to. It was a better batting show from India women with Richa Ghosh scoring a fifty and there being a couple of 40-plus scores but ultimately with a chase of 372 in front, any decent batting effort would pail in comparison.
371 was the highest team score by anyone against India in women's ODIs as the spin duo of Priya Mishra, debutant Minnu Mani and the spearhead Renuka Singh Thakur were taken to the cleaners by the likes of Perry, Voll, Phoebe Litchfield and Beth Mooney. Australian batters kept coming after the Indian bowlers one after the other and eventually as the hosts crossed 350, the bridge was already too far for the Women in Blue to even try and climb.
Australia have taken a 2-0 unassailable lead and India will hope to bounce back after a shellacking like that at WACA in Perth and try to avoid a whitewash on Wednesday, December 11.
