Ellyse Perry, one of the greatest cricket that Australia has ever produced added another feather on her cap in 2017 when she scored unbeaten 213 to become the 2nd Australian to score a Test double hundred and later became the highest individual scorer for Australia in a Test inning.
With the victory over England in the ODI series, Australia took a clear 2 point lead in the multi-format Ashes in 2017. That was a morale booster for Australia who had defeated England, the new World Champions, a couple of months ago. Their full-time captain Meg Lanning missed the Ashes for a shoulder injury and Rachael Haynes did her work reasonably well.
Winning the toss, England skipper Heather Knight decided to bat first. Australia based on all efforts from their bowler bundled England out on 280. Australia was not in a very commanding position either. They lost both the openers on 54 and Alex Blackwell was joined by Ellyse Perry. Though Blackwell didn’t stay long in the middle, Perry along with Elyse Villani fought through the overs. Both of them added 32 runs for the 5th wicket. Perry who started slowly regained her confidence with every passing ball.
It was the first ball of the 75th over and Ecclestone who had picked up 2 wickets till then was brought into the attack. The ball from the left-arm spinner pitched on the middle and leg stump and was moving away from Perry. Perry got down into her knees and swept the ball firmly through the fine leg region to reach her half-century. Her next fifty came at a rather brisk pace (82 balls).
Perry completed her century through a four to covers off the bowling of leg spinner Laura Marsh. Australia threw everything they had at Perry. They used spinners from both ends, they out defensive fields to stop the run flow but nothing seemed to affect Perry. She completed her 150 and with Tahlia McGrath added 103 runs for the 7th wicket which helped Australia to take a lead of 90 runs. As she was running out of Partners, on the other hand, Perry decided to take the attack to the opposition.
Ellyse Perry was only 9 runs away from her maiden double century when Amanda Wellington fell to Sophie Eccleston as the 9th Australian wicket. Megan Schutt came in and survived the last three balls from the over. In the next over, both Schutt and Perry took a single each while Perry stepped down the track to hit the 3rd ball of the over through long-on.
The ball landed just before the boundary rope. As the spectators singled Six from the stands, Perry raised the bat to receive the acknowledge from her teammates. But the umpires went upstairs for the conformation and Sarah Taylor, known for her wit, kept her hand on Perry’s shoulder and said, “I think the ball dropped before the boundary.” The umpires confirmed Taylor’s claim and, Perry put her helmet on to finish her job.
Ecclestone came to bowl the 165th over the innings. Perry defended the first two ball and hit the 3rd ball of the over straight past the umpire for four to complete her double hundred. A four and six in the next two balls meant Perry took her score to 213 before declaring the Australian innings at 448/9. It was highest by any Australian Woman in a Test match and 3rd highest Individual score after Kiran Baluch (242) and Mithali Raj (214).
“It was fun. I think that’s probably the best way to describe it,” Perry said after the day’s play. “I had an amazing time out there today batting with all the girls and just taking in what was such a special day in terms of the crowd attendance, it being the pink day three and just a really great event for women’s cricket. Really nice to be out there for the day and I had a lot of fun.”
“I owe Schutter a lot, she did a great job, but I kind of felt like well it’s already happened once so I’m not particularly fazed what happens after it. Whether I got a fake 200 or a real one didn’t really matter at that stage. Really nice in that last session to score in the manner we did. We took 70 runs or so off 13 or 14 overs and had a bit of a lull leading into dinner break,” she added.
