Mistiming
Grade: C
Over to Canberra then, where Australia once again batted first. Or perhaps they batted 0.97th or 1.01st. Something that suggests a lack of precision in what they were trying to do.
Because Georgia Voll spent most of the first half of the innings desperately struggling to get one of her mistimed shots to go to hand. Over and over, and over after over, she’d try to hit a shot, be slightly too late or slightly too early on it, and loft it just out of reach of an India fielder’s hands.
She somehow still brought up her fifty in just thirty balls, though, and eventually made her way to 88 (57) before being caught at deep midwicket. By that point in her innings, she was bashing the ball everywhere, and rumours of her struggles to find timing earlier in her knock were reduced to tales whispered down from generation to generation. And some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And so forth. You know the drill.
Undeterred, Beth Mooney, who’d been denied the strike through much of Voll’s earlier troubles, stepped up and picked up the slack in terms of struggling to find timing. Great partnership batting. Mooney mistimed her way to 46 (39) before finally putting the ‘shit’ in ‘mishit’, chipping a simple catch to mid-on.
Having said all that, it’s the height of privilege to be disappointed the Australian openers weren’t more elegant about their century partnership at 8.5 runs an over. But who’s to blame for that? Set your standards lower, ladies.
