Credit: ICC
On Thursday, October 16, the match 17th of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup (CWC) 2025 firmly belonged to defending champions Australia, who defeated Bangladesh by 10 wickets to go top of the points table. At the ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium in Visakhapatnam, Australia bowlers delivered a collective performance to restrict Bangladesh to 198/9 in their allotted 50 overs before captain Alyssa Healy’s seventh Women’s One Day International (WODI) hundred was key to a comprehensive run chase, which also secured their spot in the semi-final stage.
Earlier, after winning the toss, Nigar Sultana Joty decided to bat first, but Bangladesh lost wickets at regular intervals throughout their innings. From the top order, only opener Rubya Haider was somewhere at her best, scoring 44 off 59 with eight fours before Sobhana Mostary came to the crease at the fall of her wicket and batted through the Bangladesh innings, scoring 66 off 80 with nine fours to her name.
These two batters played a key role in helping Bangladesh to get up to a total of around 200 runs, which was expected to be far from competitive on a pitch expected to get better and better for batting during the evening hours. For Australia, Alana King was the pick of the bowlers with figures of (10-4-18-2) while the likes of Ashleigh Gardner, Georgia Wareham, and Annabel Sutherland also took two wickets apiece.
In pursuit of the 199-run target, Australian opening partnership of Alyssa Healy and Phoebe Litchfield ran riot with the bat, chasing down the target in just 24.5 overs after getting one chance each from the Bangladesh fielders. While Healy brought up back-to-back WODI hundreds in the tournament in Visakhapatnam, scoring unbeaten 113 runs in just 77 balls with whopping 20 fours, Phoebe Litchfield scored 84* off 72 with 12 fours and a six.
The player of the match award was given to Alana King for her incredible spell of right-arm leg spin bowling, not allowing the Bangladesh batters to get away at any stage in the middle overs.
