New Zealand’s Amelia Kerr played the greatest individual ODI game in history by smashing an unbeaten 232 runs off 145 balls and taking five wickets to beat Ireland by 305 runs.
New Zealand are warming up for the triangular tournament against England and South Africa, but they have hardly been tested.
In the third ODI, in Dublin, 17-year-old Kerr demolished the Irish and eclipsed the previous women’s world record ODI score of 229 (also not out), set by Australia legend Belinda Clark against Denmark in Mumbai in 1997.
After New Zealand ran up 440-3, Kerr then backed up her mammoth batting innings by taking 5-17 from just seven overs to help bowl out Ireland for 135.
Just five days ago, New Zealand set a world record ODI score of 490 as they beat Ireland by 346 runs. They followed that up two days later with another 400-plus score, beating Ireland by 306 runs.
Kerr became the joint third-youngest woman to make an ODI century, behind India’s Mathali Raj (16 years, 205 days) and South Africa’s Laura Wolvaardt (17 years, 105 days) and equal with England’s Charlotte Edwards (17 years, 243 days).
In her previous 19 ODIs, the right-hander had amassed just 174 runs but Wednesday’s innings eclipsed her entire career aggregate.
She finished with 31 fours and two sixes, remarkably the only maximums in New Zealand’s innings.
If that wasn’t enough, Kerr, who bowls leg-spin, claimed her maiden ODI five-wicket haul as the Irish faltered chasing the enormous target of 441.
All five of Kerr’s wickets were bowled, including four of the final five dismissals to fall.
