Preview: Australia v England

Australia plays England on Tuesday March 22, the opening day of the 2005 Women’s Cricket World Cup at Tshwane University of Technology (formerly Technikon Pretoria) Ground A. Australia and England have met 37 times in one day internationals with Australia holding a 29-6 advantage (they have also had a tie and one no-result). Australia has won their past 16 encounters with England’s last win in the 1993 World Cup in England when they won by 43 runs on their way to winning their 2nd (and last) World Cup title.

In World Cups, Australia and England have met 13 times with Australia holding an 8-3 advantage with 1 tie (one of three ties in World Cup competition, two of which have involved England).

In the past two World Cups Australia has defeated England by 54 runs (WC 2000 in New Zealand) and by 8 wickets with 139 balls to spare (WC 1997 in India).

Interestingly, England holds the two highest scores made against Australia in World Cup competition – 3/279 (60 overs) in 1973 and 5/208 (60 overs) in 1993, both were winning scores. 3/279 (60 overs) is, in fact, the highest score made by any country against Australia [the highest 50 over score made against Australia is 9/252 by New Zealand in March 2002].

In the current squads, Australia has three of the world’s current top 10 run scorers – Belinda Clark 4597 (1st), Karen Rolton 3050 (3rd) and Lisa Keightley 2105 (6th) – while England has only one – Charlotte Edwards 2089 (7th). Of the leading wicket-takers, Australia has only one of the top 10 – Cathryn Fitzpatrick 138 (1st) – while England has two – Clare Taylor 98 (2nd) and Clare Connor 68 (8th).

Belinda Clark (911 runs, 1 century) and Cathryn Fitzpatrick (27 wickets, 1×5 wicket innings) are Australia’s leading batter and bowler (Fitzpatrick jointly with Charmaine Mason) respectively against England.

Upcoming Australian milestones:

Melanie Jones needs just 54 runs to become the 7th Australian to reach 1000 ODI runs while Julie Hayes needs just 4 wickets to become the 8th Australian to reach 50 ODI wickets.

(Note: This article was originally written for the Cricketwoman website in 2005. It may contain links to Cricketarchive which have long since ceased to exist. Cricketwoman was a partner website of Cricketarchive at the time of the 2005 Womens World Cup. – RE, 2017-07-21)

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