Gardner registers maiden international hundred, becomes part of history 

Former Australia cricket captain Ashleigh Gardner became the first player to score a century batting at No. 6 in Women’s One Day International cricket. In the process she also helped Australia beat England in the third ODI at the Bellerive Oval, Hobart. Interestingly this was also her maiden international century in any format.

3-0 whitewash by Australia in WODI against England

Gardner’s historic century came in the time when Australia were visibly struggling. She waled in with Australia’s score at 59/4 on board. She then went to stich a 95-run and 103-run partnership with Beth Mooney (50) and Tahila McGrath (55) respectively. Her 102-run knock helped Australia set 308/8 in 50 over. England were then bowled out for just 222 runs and Australia claimed 3-0 series win.

The veteran all-rounder went wicketless in the match but her knock surpassed Fatima Sana of Pakistan and Alex Blackwell of New Zealand. Both had scored 90 runs before at No. 6 position before Gardner smashed 102 that included eight fours and a maximum. Currently, she has 1,270 runs across 77 WODIs at 28.86 and a strike rate of 107.17 with seven fifties and a hundred to her name. Recently Gardner completed 100 WODI wickets as well. 

Gardner on her maiden international hundred

While speaking of her performance, Gardner said, “Because I haven’t made many hundreds throughout my whole cricketing life I had a feeling that I would get really nervous in the 90s.” She added, “Thankfully for me, Nat bowled a couple down the leg and I was able to get those away to the boundary and race through the 90s.”

With this knock Gardner finally scored her maiden international century. Her previous score for Australia was 93 against India in 2020 in the shortest format of the game. She said. “The rest just fell in place and I was able to get to that milestone. It’s certainly something that I can be really proud of. I’ve played a lot of international games and haven’t quite made that mark…to be able to reach that was pretty emotional, but it was pretty cool to tick off.”

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