Australia maintained their winning start to the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup with a comfortable 98-run win over the Netherlands at the Hampshire Bowl.
After opening the tournament with wins over South Africa and Bangladesh, six-time champions Australia made it three out of three in Group A with a record-setting tournament total on Saturday.
After being put in to bat first, Australia posted an impressive 219-6 from their 20 overs, with Holland only able to muster 121-3 in reply.
England amassed 219-1 against Sri Lanka in the opener at Edgbaston last week.
Beth Mooney’s top scorer for Australia with 74 from 42 balls but had to retire due to back stiffness.
Her total was supplemented by solid stints from Ashleigh Gardner (58) and Georgia Wareham (41), before Kim Garth (2-20) and Annabel Sutherland (1-23) took wickets during an unsuccessful chase for the Dutch.
Mooney earned player of the match honors and said of her forced exit: “I’m fine. Just caution, probably just not used to all the bus travel we’ve been doing.
“The Southampton trip is quite a long one so I’m looking forward to it again tomorrow!
“As an opening batter and a top-order batter, your job is to score runs, so from my point of view I did my job pretty well today.
“Had a couple of good partnerships there, first with Georgia Voll and then Ash Gardner. I thought we were very comprehensive and the bowlers did a good job of restricting them to 120.”
Holland have lost all three group games so far on their tournament debut, although Babette de Leede caught the eye in their innings with 56 not out off 57 balls in her landmark 100th T20I appearance.
Robine Rijke also celebrated reaching the same milestone.
De Leede and Sterre Kalis combined for 96 off 91 balls from the fourth over to the 19th. Kalis, who fell on 21 and 40, was bowled for 44.
“This is a huge moment for us,” de Leede said. “Australia is a quality team [so] learning from them, seeing how they go about their innings, it’s just incredible.”
Australia next face Pakistan at Headingley on Tuesday night, while the Netherlands return to action against South Africa in Bristol on Thursday.
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