Women’s World Cup - Australia v Bangladesh Report Card

Featuring dropping catches, dreams and being annoyed by net run rate

Dropping Catches
Grade: C+

So, I missed the first hour or so of this match due to an unavoidable calendar clash (ie, English punk rock band The Clash were coming over to help me set up Google Calendar). But you can imagine my surprise when I finally tuned in and Bangladesh were still batting. What was going on here?

Turned out the Bangladesh top order had decided to settle in for some proper batting, and the Australians, in turn, had settled in for some rather chaotic fielding.

Indeed, as the innings went on, the fielding performance from Australia proved to be the equivalent of their top order batting collapses in the earlier matches. Dropped catches. Fumbles in the outfield. Dropped catches. Missed run outs. And dropped catches.

What a horrid team they are, cruelly toying with their opponents like this. Wicked and shameful behaviour.

Dreams
Grade: B

Because, somehow, in between all the dropped catches, Australia still took enough actual wickets, and slowed down the runs sufficiently, to be well on top against their infinitely less experienced opponents. (‘Infinitely less’? No. Let’s get the maths sorted out here. Even had Bangladesh never played the game before, they’d only be a hundred percent less experienced. Get a grip, Dan. Tally your numbers properly.)

My point is this - Alana King was bowling like a dream, assuming your dreams are about bowling a spell of near perfect leg spin while restraining your urges to throttle your wicketkeeper-captain and first slip when they keep dropping the chances you create.

So well was King bowling that Alyssa Healy kept her on in one continuous ten-over spell, that saw her finish with the figures of 10-4-18-2.

Good captaincy! Although it did raise, for some viewers and commentators, the ungrammatical, yet pleasingly anaphoric, question: ‘Where am Wareham?’

Being Annoyed By Net Run Rate
Grade: B

Some clever batting with the tail by Sobhana Mostary and judicious scurrying between the wickets by number eleven Fariha Trisna saw Bangladesh add 33 runs in the last four overs for the final wicket. They finished on 9/198, theoretically a target that might, if everything went Bangladesh’s way in the field, could possibly come together in such a way that Australia may, perhaps, struggle to run down the total as efficiently as they might otherwise do.

Except it didn’t.

Not a surprise, really. In fact, so unsurprising was it that I went to bed in the innings break and didn’t even bother waking up during the night to check the score.

Rightly so. Because Australia went after the target in double-time, running the total down in less than 25 overs, rather than the scheduled fifty.

I can only assume they were annoyed by England still being ahead of them on the table based on net run rate. It’s one thing to have England ahead of you on the basis of a washed out match that you can’t do anything about. But to have the points level and be behind England on NRR, despite the old enemy having been saved from a 7/70-something collapse against Pakistan by a Beth Mooney-shaped rain cloud? This won’t stand.

Unfortunate for Australia, then, that despite their frenzied pursuit of the Bangladesh target, they still weren’t able to make up the NRR difference. England now favourites to win the tournament.

Oh, but did I also mention that Australia didn’t lose any wickets in the chase? Because they did that, too, Healy and Phoebe Litchfield putting on a double century partnership.

Maybe Ellyse Perry also went to bed in the innings break too and they didn’t want to disturb her.