Sports
Voll, Perry centuries and Sutherland four-for seal series for Australia

Georgia Voll smashed a maiden century to continue her stunning rise in the international arena, while Ellyse Perry produced a vintage knock, as Australia clinched the ODI series after a crushing 122-run victory over India at the Allan Border Field.
Australia posted 371 for 8, their third highest total in ODI’s and it proved more than enough despite some belated fight from India on a benign surface in searing heat.
India’s batting order equipped themselves much better than in game one when they were rolled for 100 with Richa Ghosh’s move to the top of the order paying off with an attractive half-century.
But India never came close to pulling off a monumental chase and lost wickets regularly to be dismissed for 249 in the 45th over with opener Priya Punia unable to bat after suffering a niggle in the field. Their slim hopes effectively ended when captain Harmanpreet Kaur fell to quick Megan Schutt for 38 off 42 balls in the 28th over.
India will rue a ragged performance with the ball and in the field as their dreams of a first series victory over Australia in Australia in ODIs ended in familiar disappointment.
With the home team having comfortably won the series opener by five wickets at the same venue, Australia’s top order decimated India’s flagging attack after electing to bat. Voll, who has replaced injured captain Alyssa Healy for the series, ignited Australia and backed up her unbeaten 46 on debut by blasting 101 off 87 balls to underline her rich form after an eye-catching WBBL.
Her belligerent hitting was on full display, clubbing 12 fours in total, and she combined in a 130-run opening partnership with fellow 21-year-old Phoebe Litchfield, who scored 60 off 63 balls. While Australia’s young stars provided another glimpse of the future, Perry wound back the clock with stunning power-hitting as she became the fourth women’s player from her country to pass 4000 ODI runs.
Perry put the finishing touches with 105 off 75 balls, marked by an Australian record of six sixes, while Beth Mooney scored 56 of 44.
In oppressive Brisbane heat reaching 35 degrees celsius, India were helpless although debutant offspinner Minnu Mani had an encouraging all-round performance with two wickets and an unbeaten 46 from 45 balls.
Australia captain Tahlia McGrath resisted the temptation to bowl first and their batters had to front up in potentially tricky early conditions with the match starting at 9.45am local time.
India’s new-ball bowlers Renuka Singh, who hustled Australia in game one with three wickets, and Saima Thakor hoped to conjure swing and make early breakthroughs before the peak heat of the day. But they bowled too full and runs flowed when Litchfield smashed a four on the second delivery before Voll took over with four fours in six balls to get Australia off to a flier.
Litchfield did have a slice of luck on 5 after mis-hitting Thakor to mid-on only for Punia to spill a chance diving forward. It proved costly as Harmanpreet turned to the spin of Deepti Sharma and Priya Mishra within the powerplay but to no avail.
Voll’s maturity continued to impress as she used her feet superbly against the spinners but made sure she didn’t overhit. Her driving was also a feature as she reached her half-century in 43 balls.
Litchfield had been largely overshadowed before igniting her innings with well-executed reverse sweeps to roll to a 58-ball 50. They were totally untroubled until Voll was deceived on 64 by a superb googly from Mishra, who impressed late in game one, and given out lbw before successfully reviewing with ball-tracking suggesting it would miss leg stump.
India were finally rewarded in the next over when Litchfield hit Thakor straight to cover, but the respite was fleeting with Perry in an aggressive mood as she unfurled her trademark lofted drive to devastating effect. Voll cruised towards a century with her only scare being on 86 when she was almost run out by a direct hit from Mani after attempting a quick single, but grounded her bat in the nick of time.
It wasn’t long before Voll flicked Mani to the leg side to bring up her century as she calmly raised her bat and helmet with her proud mother beaming amid the applause in the terraces. Voll could not power on after she edged behind a wide delivery from Thakur, but Perry took over with a flawless century off 72 balls having earlier notched 7000 runs across formats in international cricket.
Perry was eventually bowled by Deepti and her wicket triggered a late collapse, but Australia still easily surpassed the previous ground record of 325 for a women’s ODI.
With Punia unable to bat, India rejigged their batting order and Ghosh, who batted at No. 6 in the first ODI, made a bright start by whacking Schutt to the boundary on the third delivery. But India’s hopes quickly crashed when opener Smriti Mandhana was bowled off the inside edge from quick Kim Garth and Australia’s disciplined attack kept the run rate under control despite the efforts of Ghosh.
Legspinner Alana King ended Ghosh’s 72-ball 54 by bowling her around the legs as the pressure fell on Harmanpreet, who had started with a first ball boundary and she also clubbed a short ball from McGrath over the ropes. But Harmanpreet fell in the 28th over and the result was a formality despite late fight from Jemimah Rodrigues, who smacked 43 off 39 balls, and Mani.
Annabel Sutherland claimed the spoils with 4 for 38 as Australia continued a satisfying return to the field following their T20 World Cup disappointment.
Brief scores:
Australia Women 371 for 8 in 50 overs (Ellyse Perry 105, Georgia Voll 101, Phoebe Litchfield 60, Beth Mooney 56; Saima Thakor 3-62) beat India Women 249 in 44.5 overs (Richa Ghosh 54, Minnu Mani 46*, Jemmimah Rodrigues 43; Annabel Sutherland 4-39) by 122 runs
[Cricinfo]
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Zimbabwe, Ireland look to enhance their ODI cred as road to 2027 World Cup begins

Zimbabwe and Ireland are set to play three ODIs starting on February 14. The series is not wrapped in a larger context but is working towards the 2027 ODI World Cup – a converging goal for both teams. ESPNcricinfo looks ahead to what the teams can do to align themselves towards their goals in Harare.
Zimbabwe’s summer of 2024-25 is galloping towards its finish, and while they were able to snatch an ODI win each against Afghanistan and Pakistan, they are yet to win a series. In fact, they are yet to win a series across formats. They have three ODIs and three T20Is to change that before heading to England for a Test in three months.
Ireland came out of the cold to seal a hat-trick of Test wins, and they now have the opportunity to whet their appetite in white-ball cricket before their home summer, which also starts in three months.
Both teams did not qualify for the 2023 ODI World Cup, so they were not in contention to make the upcoming Champions Trophy. But they do have a carrot to run towards.
Zimbabwe will co-host the 2027 ODI World Cup along with South Africa. Ireland, who were unable to qualify for the last two editions despite ODIs being the format that helped them break into the international stage, have a chance to make a comeback.
On the flipside, the absence of high stakes can free the teams to test out tactics and players if they wish to do so.
The first ever ODI between these two teams, which took place in the 2007 World Cup, ended in a tie, and since then, Ireland have won ten of the 21 ODIs that have been played. The extent of their dominance is magnified in their last ten completed games, out of which they have won eight. They have won five of the 11 games in Harare, but are coming in with a streak of three wins at the venue.
Zimbabwe will be boosted by the return of Craig Ervine, who missed the Test due to a family emergency, and Sikandar Raza, who was with Dubai Capitals – the winners of the third edition of the ILT20. Their top-seven batters, who have averaged 16.69 since the start of 2024, will need to step up for the team to go through an upward trajectory.
In that period, Ireland have played five ODIs, compared to Zimbabwe’s nine. So, time in the middle will be significant in and of itself. They have a settled top-six, with captain Paul Stirling and Andy Balbirnie at the top, and a seasoned bowling line-up, led by Craig Young and Mark Adair.
Only three ODIs have been played in Harare in the past 12 months. But in the 19 games it has hosted in the last two – including the ODI World Cup Qualifiers in 2023 – the pacers have picked up 144 wickets at an average of 30.38 and economy of 5.37, while the spinners have taken 94 wickets at an average of 36.08 and an economy of 5.10 . However, those numbers could be a result of the fact that all 19 games have been played during the day, where the new ball assisted bowlers in the powerplay before conditions eased out in the middle overs.
So, top-order runs and early wickets in the first innings are likely to carry a premium, as will good defensive spin bowling in the middle overs.
[Cricinfo]
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Vandersay wins ESPNcricinfo 2024 men’s ODI bowling award

Jeffrey Vandersay has won the ESPNcricinfo 2024 men’s bowling award for his feat of 6 for 33 in the second ODI against India in Colombo.
Sri Lanka hadn’t won a bilateral ODI series against India since August 1987. They came into this one having lost each of their last six ODIs against India. They came in on the back of losing two unloseable games in a 3-0 T20I defeat.
This Sri Lanka side had finished ninth out of ten teams at the 2023 World Cup, and had missed out on qualifying for the 2025 Champions Trophy.
In the soil of Khettarama, however, lay a possible route to redemption. Spin. The first ODI, a classic that finished in a tie that shouldn’t have been, showed the way.
But Sri Lanka’s chances of bettering that effort in the second ODI took a blow when a hamstring injury ruled out the talismanic Wanindu Hasaranga. In his place came Vandersay, a perennial understudy who had played only 22 of Sri Lanka’s 158 ODIs since his debut in December 2015.
By the time of Vandersay’s introduction with the ball, Sri Lanka were struggling to stay in the game. India, chasing 241, were 80 for no loss in 11 overs. Rohit Sharma was batting on 53 off 34 balls. Sri Lanka had packed five spinners into their attack, but the three who had bowled till then had gone for 57 in seven overs.
Onto this stage strode the unlikeliest of heroes. From his second over to his seventh, Vandersay struck six times as India slumped from 97 for no loss to 147 for 6, scything through a star-studded top order on a pitch that, albeit helpful, wasn’t bringing his spin colleagues any success. Vandersay’s removal from the attack contributed to an India fightback, but he’d done enough damage by then, and Sri Lanka eventually wrapped up a 32-run win. They went on to win the third ODI too, and seal a most unexpected series triumph.
What did Vandersay do differently to Sri Lanka’s other spinners? He came on after the first powerplay, and spread-out fields allowed him to settle into a rhythm. He bowled legspin, and got the wristspinner’s natural bounce to go with generous amounts of turn – this widened the extent of natural variation he was able to extract from the surface. And above all, his line and length heightened the natural variation’s venom; releasing his legbreaks with subtle adjustments of wrist and seam orientation, he got the ball to test both edges of the bat from off roughly the same area of the pitch while relentlessly keeping the stumps in play.
The lbws of Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer summed up Vandersay’s menace; both batters stretched out to defend, and both times the ball hurried past the inside edge to strike the front pad, straightening a touch but turning far less than expected.
It wasn’t a classic legspinner’s dismissal, but it sowed the seeds of everything that followed: Rohit caught at backward point for 64 off 44 balls, failing to keep a reverse sweep down. That wicket broke open the floodgates, and the way that ball turned and bounced also contributed to future dismissals, putting the threat of the big legbreak in the batters’ minds and leaving them particularly vulnerable to the skidder.
The ones apart from Vandersay to pick six or more wickets in an ODI against India are Muthiah Muralidaran, Ajantha Mendis, Angelo Mathews and Akila Dananjaya .
[Cricinfo]
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Pakistan vs New Zealand in a title clash and a dress rehearsal

It’s rare for a tournament final to be a dry run, but that’s almost what this Pakistan vs New Zealand game will be. There’s a trophy on the line in Karachi, five days before another Pakistan vs New Zealand game in Karachi – that is the big one, the opening game of the Champions Trophy. In that sense, when this tri-series was planned, this was the final that would have made the most sense, if you’d asked anyone bar, perhaps, South Africa.
New Zealand have comfortably been the team of the tournament so far, but Pakistan arguably come in on a bigger high, riding a wave after coming back from the dead to steal the second place on the table after an epic ODI chase against South Africa. The execution of the win was more satisfying than the fact that it happened. Two men in Pakistan’s middle order stringing together Pakistan’s third-highest ODI partnership – Mohammed Rizwan and Salman Agha put on a whopping 260 for the fourth wicket, masterfully pacing a chase while seemingly not playing a single shot in anger. Most notably, it will allay fears of an over-dependence on Fakhar Zaman up top if the middle order can find a way to stand up for itself more regularly, balancing Pakistan’s batting line-up ahead of the Champions Trophy.
But Pakistan’s death bowling remains a cause for concern. They conceded 98 in the final six overs against New Zealand and 87 in the final seven on Wednesday against South Africa. On both occasions, one man in a purple patch took the attack to them – the fast bowlers in particular. It was Glenn Phillips one day, Heinrich Klaasen the next. It keeps New Zealand in the game till late, knowing they can catch up against a bowling line up that has revealed it it vulnerable.
New Zealand have just about played two perfect games, with control the key feature of their performances. There is a calm this side exudes when it appears a passage of play is going against them. They didn’t panic when they weren’t quite at the run rate they wanted to be against Pakistan until deep in the innings, keeping their ammunition dry until the opportunity to use it presented itself. When Matthew Breetzke took them on at the death, they retained their composure, aware the target was still below par, and then made short work of it with a near faultless chase.
Most notably, New Zealand have shown how to use spin as a leash for the opposition on these surfaces, and possess more experienced, more varied and, frankly, superior slower bowlers. Mitchell Santner has been in the middle of special run the last few months, and stifled Pakistan alongside Michael Bracewell, Phillips and Rachin Ravindra last week. They bowled 26 of the 47.5 overs through that innings, and while Pakistan’s spinners bowled a similar amount, they weren’t nearly as effective.
It is a game with silverware up for grabs, and the group-stage rubber between the two next week inflates its importance rather than diminishing it.
Kane Williamson followed up a half-century against Pakistan with an unbeaten hundred to vanquish South Africa. New Zealand haven’t played too many ODIs since the 2023 World Cup, but he appears to have picked up where he left off, on surfaces that are perfectly suited to his immense ability. He showed in the first game he could grind it out on a “tackier wicket”, as he put it, while picking the pace up on the flatter surface against South Africa. His legendary unflappability has handled far bigger occasions, with his current form not just a warning sign for Pakistan, but every side he comes up against in the next few days.
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