The best I've bowled in recent times: Georgia Wareham

Australia extended their winning streak to 19 ODIs when they cruised past New Zealand by seven wickets in the first match of the Rose Bowl Series at the Allan Border Field in Brisbane on Saturday (October 3). Georgia Wareham, who won the player of the match award for her figures of 10-1-23-2, said she feels at her very best with the ball at the moment.



“Today was probably the best I bowled out of the last few games. Looking back, I feel like the ball's coming out pretty well. Today was probably the better of the last few games, and I feel pretty confident with the ball and how it's coming out,” she said at the post-match media interaction.



“At the moment for me I'm just really trying to spin the ball. I think that's been a huge part of what I've been focusing on in the last while - in T20Is and coming into the one-dayers - just being a little bit more patient, and it came off for me today.”



“It's really good to have those extra overs, I think in T20s you can get a little bit rushed coming on for one over spells. But the one-day stuff, it is a lot easier to sort of ease into it and then get a bit of a rhythm going.”



The Australian spin trio of Wareham, Jess Jonassen and Sophie Molineux strangled New Zealand's batters, not letting them get away in the middle-overs. They bowled 29.1 overs between them taking 6 wickets while conceding only 80 runs. Wareham herself bowled a total of  45 dots in her 10 over spell, almost completely drying up the runs.



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“We're always communicating throughout the day and in the lead up as well. I think we all have a lot of good conversations about our plans and how we're going to go about it. We're a bit of a tight group and we work well together. I think today was a really good example of how we can string a few overs together and build heaps of pressure and then one of us comes out and gets a wicket. I think we go pretty well as a spin group,” Wareham said.



“We bowled really well in partnerships putting a lot of overs together for not a lot of runs. I think JJ (Jonassen) bowled a really good set, same with Soph (Molineux) not going for many. Then adding them all together which allowed us to get through the overs quite quickly and kind of escape by not getting hit for many runs which was quite helpful during that middle period. We sort of just took the game away from them through that period.”



“We're pretty lucky in the fact that all of us have the ability to put a lot of work on the ball and get it to turn off the wicket. For me especially that does mean tossing it up a little bit and enticing the batters to come down. It's probably not a main focus for us. It's probably just the fact that we're really trying to spin the ball.”



Annabel Sutherland celebrates her maiden wicket. © Getty Images



“We've built a lot of pressure early and that put them on the back foot at the start. But I think we bowled in what are good areas today which helped build that pressure and made it harder for them to score and that’s turned into wickets. They built up the intent towards the back end of the innings (and) they sort of got away from us a little bit. But us as a bowling unit should be pretty proud of the majority of that bowling innings.”



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The 21-year-old leg-spinner believes her Victorian teammate Annabel Sutherland, who made her debut on Saturday, is already an exciting prospect and will go on to become a great player in the future.



“There was a lot of excitement around Annabel's debut today and I guess for her getting a cap presented buy Pez (Ellyse Perry) which was really special. As a Victorian group we have probably spent a lot of time together throughout the pre-season, so I see how she's trained throughout the whole pre-season and (her) getting a game today was really exciting,” Wareham said.



“She's such a great player and she's really beyond her years at the moment. After the first couple overs going for a few runs, she sort of calmed and got her composure back and got that wicket of Amy Satterthwaite which was a really big wicket in terms of the game for us and I think that definitely settled her down. She's going to be a great player and already is, but it was really exciting to see you get her first wicket out there.”



Chasing moderate target of 181 runs to win, skipper Meg Lanning remained not out on 62 and finished the match with a six over long-off to take Australia home against their trans-Tasman rivals with plenty of overs to spare.



“Meg put on a bit of a clinic today and then showed the rest of the order how to get it done. It's probably a focus for us that we like to keep one of the top four in and through the innings so I guess Meg did a really good job to set an example,” she concluded.