‘Play a shot, Chamari’: Healy’s well-timed chirp in Australia’s opening World Cup win

Australia avoided the fate of India by scrambling to an opening round win at the World Cup, but the defending champions know they will have to find much more polish to get past New Zealand on Tuesday night.

Seasoned performers Megan Schutt (3-12) and Beth Mooney (43 not out) led the way in a six-wicket victory that was largely bankrolled by a sharp start with the ball. At 2-6 in the fourth over, with their talisman Chamari Athapaththu already gone, Sri Lanka were never likely to challenge.

Athapaththu’s departure came the very next delivery after Australian captain Alyssa Healy got chirpy behind the stumps.

“Play a shot, Chamari,” she could be heard saying on the stump mic – which Athapaththu did, only to fall victim to Ash Gardner lbw.

Nevertheless, Healy’s side has some tidying up to do in the field and must be more precise with the bat – both areas likely to be tested by New Zealand after their upset of India threw the tournament wide open. As it stands, the Australians are second in the group on run rate.

“Pretty cool, opens up the tournament completely and shows if you have a lot of intent at the start what that can do in the power play,” Schutt said of New Zealand. “So, it’ll be a great match, we’ve obviously just come off a series against them in Australian conditions so it’ll be an even tougher match up here.

Australian players celebrate the wicket of Sri Lanka’s captain Chamari Athapaththu.Credit: AP

“It probably could have been cleaner in the field. It was warm out there, it was tough. But yeah, probably not as clean as we’d like to be in the field and probably could have done that a little easier with the bat. But it was tough out there and credit to them for getting the job done under 15 [overs].”

By winning without playing their best, Australia carried out the advice of former skipper Meg Lanning, who predicted a “grind” to get out of the group.

“You don’t have to play your best cricket, that’s really important to know,” Lanning had said.

“You’ve still got to be able to scrape over the line if you don’t play as well, and that might need to be the case here. It’s five overs here, and five overs there that decide the game. T20 is very fickle, so make sure we don’t start too slowly.”

The Australians included young pace bowler Darcie Brown ahead of the wrist spin of Alana King, and may have to reconsider their balance. Brown bowled only one over, costing 12, and also dropped a catch while tweakers Ash Gardner, Sophie Molineux and Georgia Wareham were all economical wicket-takers.

Australia’s Beth Mooney plays a shot during the T20 World Cup 2024 match against Sri Lanka.Credit: AP

Schutt, who now shares the record for most World Cup wickets (43) with South African Shabnim Ismail, said her combination of medium paced swing bowling and changes of pace seemed well-suited to a slow Sharjah track.

“Probably helps I’m half a spinner,” Schutt quipped. “There was actually a little bit more bounce and carry in my first over than what I thought there was going to be. So that was a nice surprise to have a slip in there early.

“But yeah, taking the pace off, I think we always knew it was going to be effective over here. And as the game progressed, it did get lower and slower.”

With the bat, Healy and Ellyse Perry were both bowled by deliveries that straightened to beat the outside edge, and the runout of Wareham was the result of a particularly tight call for a single by Mooney.

From that moment, though, the left-handed Mooney zeroed in on her task, and had some welcome help from the fit-again Phoebe Litchfield to close out the target. Schutt said the Australians were relieved to get through their one daytime start in temperatures that hovered around the mid-30s, but tougher challenges await.

“We were pretty nervous to play at 2pm in terms of the heat and I think we handled that really well,” Schutt said. “We probably worked ourselves up a little bit more than what it was out there, the breeze was life-saving. I think we’ve acclimatised nicely to that, and now we move into night games which will be much more pleasant.

“I think the slowness of the pitches brings in every single team into this tournament, it actually evens it out really nicely.”

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