Australia stars Ashleigh Gardner, Beth Mooney and Kim Garth have secured a second piece of silverware from a prosperous European summer, helping the Trent Rockets to a dominant victory in the final of the Hundred.
Gardner hit the winning boundary in the Rockets’ eight-wicket stroll over Sunrisers Leeds at Lord’s, just six weeks after the trio all featured in Australia’s T20 World Cup final triumph, also at the home of cricket.
Gardner, who’d proved an inspirational skipper over the past month overseeing just one Rockets’ loss in nine matches, took 1-23 and ended on nine not out, with Mooney once again proving peerless in a white-ball final with her match-winning 31no at the other end.
Seamer Garth had earlier started the rout of the Sunrisers, with two quick wickets in three balls as the reigning champions, even with player-of-the-tournament and leading scorer Annabel Sutherland, Phoebe Litchfield and Jess Jonassen all in fine form, crumbled to a run-a-ball 91 all out.
Gardner got just about everything right from the moment she won the toss and put Leeds in to bat, just as she has done over the whole tournament in which she’d scored 107 runs, took 11 wickets and held six catches.
“She’s led from the front brilliantly – can’t fault her,” said player-of-the-match Georgia Adams of her skipper.
The veteran Englishwoman Adams, in her fifth Hundred final, proved Gardner’s key weapon on the day, first taking the leaping catch at short fine-leg that dismissed a lap-scooping Litchfield, who’d raced menacingly to 10 off five balls with a four and six.
Adams (2-9 off 15 balls) then deceived Sutherland, getting her stumped by Mooney, just as the allrounder had threatened to bail out the Sunrisers with 25 off 23 balls, before also fashioning the run-out of Jonassen for a duck with a smart bit of fielding.
With such a small target to aim at, Mooney’s enduring excellence proved invaluable again as the left-handed champion, who averages 72 in white-ball finals, went into familiar brisk, businesslike mode.
She moved to 31no off 21 balls, with four fours, still being there at the end after opening partner Sophia Dunkley had fallen for a breezy 41 off 23. Gardner then finished the job with a glorious back-foot drive off Jonassen.
“I just felt like we’ve been fantastic throughout,” Gardner said.
“We’ve got so much experience within our side, so I’m able to lean on different people out there as well. So it certainly hasn’t been just on me.”
Mooney said: “I didn’t have a great season, but thankfully everyone around me did really well, so it didn’t really matter.”
Sutherland was rewarded for another remarkable month’s labours, in which she was top-scorer with 315 runs (ahead of Litchfield’s 303) and took 11 wickets, with the player-of-the-tournament gong.
Zero for David as Langer’s men roar to Hundred joy
Tim David’s disappointing campaign in The Hundred has ended with one final golden duck as New Zealand blaster Tim Seifert stole the show – and the trophy – for the Justin Langer-coached Manchester Super Giants.
David had been hoping to finally fire for the Trent Rockets in Sunday’s (Monday AEST) tournament climax at Lord’s but, having amassed only 90 runs in his seven knocks, the Nottingham side’s most destructive ‘finisher’ failed to deliver once more.
He came to the wicket with the Rockets at 3-86, with a decent platform to launch his fireworks. Instead, inspired wrist spinner Noor Ahmad (3-33) induced him into a drive first-ball, only for him to edge behind to Super Giants’ captain Jos Buttler.
There were plenty of handier contributions along the way for the Rockets – 38 from 19 balls for Aneurin Donald, 32 from 16 for Lewis Gregory and 31 from 24 for Ben Duckett, but their final tally of 8-158, having been put in by Buttler, always looked vulnerable.
Once Seifert got to work, it was then made to look more of a cakewalk. Melbourne Renegades’ popular Kiwi international, who won the player-of-the-tournament award after a stellar month, crashed 72 off 38 balls, with seven sixes, at the top of the order.
By the time his fireworks ended with just 23 needed and seven wickets still standing, not even a late wobble could stop the inevitable, with the ever-reliable Liam Dawson, after a couple of nervy dot balls, smashing a six over cow corner to seal the five-wicket win with a couple of the 100 deliveries remaining.
It was a personal triumph for Buttler, who had taken over the captaincy after Aiden Markham returned to South Africa for personal reasons earlier in the month.
Buttler took the gamble to bowl first even though the last three winners of the men’s Hundred final had opted to bat under captain Sam Billings, who was this time in charge of the Rockets and came agonisingly close to winning a fourth-straight title after his spell at the Oval Invincibles.
It was also a delight for the Australian back-room team behind the Old Trafford-based franchise, headed by the Super Giants’ global director of cricket Tom Moody and coach Langer, who hailed his players as “ripping blokes.”
For Moody, it was a fourth consecutive triumph after he’d won the previous three Hundred crowns with the Invincibles.
“It’s a great achievement,” he said of his maiden win with Manchester.
“In my position, it’s a privilege to be involved. Obviously, the players are the ones that do all the hard work and they’ve been consistent pretty much throughout the tournament. They deserve the trophy at the end.”
