CHENNAI: It was the opening day of one of the least talked about tournaments in women's cricket. With all the T20 franchise leagues getting more and more attention every passing month, the domestic 50-over competitions don't become the talk of the town unless something extraordinary happens in the course of them. Australia's Women's National Cricket League is one of them.
On the opening day of the regular season in 2022, with most of the national team players representing their respective states, there was nothing eye-catching in general about the 50-over competition.
In Melbourne, some three kilometers away from the iconic Adelaide Oval, at the Karen Rolton Oval, named after her first international captain, Ellyse Perry had to walk in early after losing Sophie Molinuex. In true Perry fashion, she slowly took charge of the innings with her drives, backfoot punches and pull shots on her way to scoring a brilliant century against the South Australian team led by Tahlia McGrath.
Annabel Sutherland, who initially played the second fiddle to Perry soon took over and scored a century of her own. In the tall chase of 262, McGrath stepped up to hit three back-to-back sixes in the final over of the day to take South Australia over the line - en route scoring a century of her own. If that wasn't enough, Alana King, another Australian national player, took five wickets for Western Australia against the Australian Capital Territory team. It was one of the impressive performances from the players who had already made it to the international level.
Then there was Georgia Voll. At North Sydney Oval, which might one day get renamed after Perry, Voll went after New South Wales bowlers like a veteran. She forged meaningful partnerships with Georgia Redmayne, Mikayla Hinkley and Laura Harris to add a ton to her name, which set the perfect tone for Queensland as they defeated 17-time WNCL champions NSW by a whopping 111 runs.
If Perry was elegant, Sutherland was calculative and McGrath was all flash and bang, Voll was a perfect mixture of all of that. One could see the enormous impact of another Australian player — Beth Mooney on the way the youngster batted. The footwork was spot on so was her immaculate wristwork. There were textbook on-drives and beautiful-looking pull shots.
While she got a lifeline batting on 48 from none other than her close friend, Phoebe Litchfield, there was no stopping Voll that day. She was smart about her shot selection and did not flinch even when she lost partners at the other end. Once she got past three figures, she even threw a few ramp shots off Sammy-Jo Johnson, which would have even made Mooney proud. By the time she finally got out, she had batted for close to 46 overs to smash 145 off 161 deliveries, which ultimately led to Queensland putting a mammoth 307 for nine on the board.
That was the day Perry, the two players considered her heir apparent, and one 19-year-old player from Toowoomba, Queensland, scored centuries. From the outside looking in, it was yet another day of domestic cricket in Australia. Not many outside the country even paid attention to it, but believe it or not, that is where the seeds of Australia's highest score against India were sowed.
On Sunday, when most of India was waking up with the hope of their men's team staying alive in the pink-ball test in Adelaide, the women's team was looking for answers of their own against Australia. In due course, Voll scored a century on her second international outing. Perry broke multiple records in ODIs while adding another 100 to her name. Sutherland could not do much batting at five but took her second-best figures in the format and best-ever against India. All the while McGrath led the troops as a captain in the absence of Alyssa Healy.
In the scheme of things, as they stand today, many might consider the presence of a franchise league as a silver bullet solution in women's cricket. That might be the case, but one cannot ignore what WNCL has done for women's cricket in Australia. For the 29th season in running, the competition has stood the test of time to provide the pipeline to the national setup.
"My responsibility is to create Australian cricketers at this level," Salliann Beams, former head coach of the current WNCL champions Tasmanian Tigers women's team had told Women's CricZone in the past. While the world scratches its head about how a player like Voll can hit a century in her sophomore outing for the national side, part of that answer lies in how formidable WNCL has been. And to be honest, Voll could just be the beginning.
Brief scores: Australia 371/8 in 50 ovs (Perry 105, Voll 101; Saima Thakor 3/62) beat India 249 all out in 44.5 ovs (Richa Ghosh 54, Minnu Mani 46; Sutherland 4/39)