Twin tons ensure historic ODI is one to remember

Meg Lanning and Alyssa Healy have overcome sweltering conditions in Antigua to break new ground in Australia’s historic maiden ODI on Caribbean soil.

Australia’s women had never played a one-dayer in the region until Thursday, but captain Lanning and opener Healy made sure it was an occasion to remember as they struck twin centuries, posting the team’s second-highest ODI partnership in the process.

Lanning’s 121 and Healy’s 122 is just the fifth time Australia’s women have scored two hundreds in the same ODI, and the first since Alex Blackwell and Karen Rolton achieved the feat against India in 2008.

Their efforts lifted Australia to 4-308, their highest-ever total against West Indies and their fifth highest overall in the 50-over format.

And in their first foray into 50-over cricket in the Caribbean, they set a new mark for highest women’s total by any side in the region.

In the process, Lanning – who has already scored more one-day international centuries than any other woman – became the fastest player, male or female, to reach 13 ODI tons.

She got there in her 76th innings, eclipsing the previous record of 83 held by South Africa’s Hashim Amla.

By the time she was dismissed looking to hit out in the 45th over, she’d eclipsed Blackwell to become Australia’s third-highest female ODI run scorer, her 3497 runs only bettered by the legendary Belinda Clark (4844 in 114 innings) and Rolton (4814 in 132 innings).

Healy’s century was her second at international level, with both of those one-day tons scored away from home, and continued the stunning run of form that’s seen her average 52.18 since the start of the 2017 Ashes in Australia.

Both players rode their luck throughout their knocks, making the Windies pay for a series of dropped chances in the field and capitalising on loose bowling, but their efforts were all the more impressive for the conditions they were scored in.

Arriving in the Caribbean in the middle of Hurricane season has ensured a hot and humid welcome for the touring Australians – with conditions much more inhospitable than those they faced when they played the T20 World Cup in Antigua last November.

Healy and Lanning sweated their way through 38.1 overs at the crease together after opener Rachael Haynes departed first ball, making the most of any opportunity to rehydrate in more than 80 per cent humidity.

Uncapped allrounder Heather Graham was given the job of shielding Healy from the sun with a towel during breaks in play, the energy-sapping heat keeping both century celebrations to a modest grin and bat raise.

CommBank Tour of the West Indies

Australia squad: Meg Lanning (c), Rachael Haynes (vc), Erin Burns, Nicola Carey, Ashleigh Gardner, Heather Graham, Alyssa Healy, Jess Jonassen, Delissa Kimmince, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Tayla Vlaeminck, Georgia Wareham

West Indies ODI squad: Stafanie Taylor (c), Hayley Matthews (vc), Reniece Boyce, Afy Fletcher, Chinelle Henry, Shamilia Connell, Stacy Ann King, Natasha McLean, Kycia Knight, Kyshona Knight, Anisa Mohammed, Karishma Ramharack, Shabika Gajnabi

One-Day Internationals*
*ICC Women's Championship matches

September 5: First ODI, Coolidge Cricket Ground, Antigua

September 8: Second ODI, Sir Viv Richards Ground, Antigua

September 11: Third ODI, Sir Viv Richards Ground, Antigua

Twenty20 Internationals

September 14: First T20I, Kensington Oval, Barbados

September 16: Second T20I, Kensington Oval, Barbados

September 18: Third T20I, Kensington Oval, Barbados