How about this? You’re playing your first Test as captain of Australia, your parents are in the crowd, you win the toss and elect to bat. All good right? Then all of a sudden the team is 28/5 and you’re watching the collapse and now batting with a player on debut? What do you do? You peel off one of the greatest captain’s knocks of all time.
Born on June 19th 1984 in Toowoomba, Queensland is former Australian Test captain and two time World Cup winner, Jodie Fields. Primarily a wicket keeper who could bat, Fields ended her Test career with a batting average of 66.20. She led the team to an unexpected victory in the 2012 T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka and backed it up in 2013 winning the ODI World Cup in India.
Now, back to that match against England. Shelley Nitschke, Alex Blackwell, Karen Rolton, Lisa Sthalekar are all back in the shed, and 23/4 becomes 28/5 when Leah Poulton is bowled by Katherine Brunt (6-69). In comes Rachael Haynes in her debut and she is guided by her captain who says they are just taking it 10 run at a time. That happens nearly 23 times… the partnership of 229 saved Australia’s bacon. The skipper finished with 139 while Haynes falls short of a debut century with 98.
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