Alyssa Healy suffers ugly fate as Jess Jonassen makes mockery of Aussie cricket call
Jonassen has been on fire in the Women's Premier League after she was axed from Australia's white-ball squads.
Alyssa Healy and Beth Mooney have missed the finals in the Women's Premier League, but Jess Jonassen has continued to make Aussie cricket selectors look foolish for dropping her from the national white-ball squads. Mooney made 74 off 52 balls on Monday night as the Gujarat Giants beat Healy's UP Warriorz for just their second win of the tournament.
A win for the Warriorz would have kept their finals hopes alive and finished the Giants off, but Mooney's heroics mean both have missed out. Despite losing Healy for four and crashing to 4-16 while chasing 153 for victory, the Warriorz almost made it thanks to Deepti Sharma's unbeaten 88.
The Giants held on to win by eight runs, meaning both teams were left relying on improbable results going their way to make the playoffs. It marks a disappointing development for the sides captained by Aussie stars Healy and Mooney to miss out.
RCB's win over Mumbai Indians on Tuesday night sealed Healy and Mooney's fate, with RCB, Mumbai and Delhi Capitals qualifying for the playoffs. "It's been a disappointing night all round," said Healy. "We probably looked to take it on a bit too early, that's what we do but it didn't pay off tonight. We've been inconsistent [this season]. We've let ourselves down, definitely in the field at times, but cashing in where we needed to. Hopefully we'll be better next year."
Reflecting on her own team's campaign, Mooney said: "In the last few games we gave the fans something good to watch hopefully. It's good for the group to galvanise together."
Jess Jonassen making a mockery of Aussie cricket selectors
Mooney's Giants team also features fellow Aussies Phoebe Litchfield and Ash Gardner, while the Warriorz have Grace Harris as well as Healy. One Aussie who will be playing finals is Jonassen, who continues to show Australian selectors what they'll be missing during an upcoming tour of Bangladesh.
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Jonassen has been a mainstay in the Australian side in all three formats for a number of years. But she was left out of the XI for the recent Test match against South Africa, and wasn't selected in the squad to tour Bangladesh for T20 and ODI matches.
She was responded to her axing in brilliant fashion, producing a number of standout displays alongside Lanning for the Capitals. The spinning all-rounder, who has enjoyed a terrific tournament in India, was called on by Lanning to bowl the final over against RCB on Sunday.
Bangalore needed 17 off Jonassen's over, and Richa Ghosh got it down to two off the final ball after smacking two big sixes. Jonassen held her nerve superbly, spearing the ball in at the stumps and only allowing Ghosh to hit it straight to backward point.
RCB tried to scamper through for a run to send the match to a super-over, but Jonassen whipped off the bails after Shafali Verma's throw drew the Aussie away from the stumps. Jonassen gathered the ball and dived back towards the stumps, narrowly beating Ghosh's despairing dive into the crease to seal a one-run victory.
"I tried to hit her toes (with the last delivery) and it came off, which is nice," said Jonassen. "I made it really hard for us in the end. I thought I would be good if I did not get hit for a six first ball, but that is what happened."
Another Classic in #TATAWPL @DelhiCapitals win the match by 1 RUN! They jump to the top of points table 🔝
Scoreboard 💻 📱 https://t.co/b7pHKEKqiN#DCvRCB pic.twitter.com/znJ27EhXS6— Women's Premier League (WPL) (@wplt20) March 10, 2024
with AAP
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