Women’s World Cup: All-conquering Australians are cricket’s version of the Terminator

Well with this current iteration of the Australian women’s team, it’s “if Alyssa Healy don’t get you, Ellyse Perry must”.

Or actually no. Maybe it will be Ash Gardner. Or Beth Mooney. Or Phoebe Litchfield. Or Alana King. Or Annabel Sutherland. Or Tahlia McGrath. Or Kim Garth. You get the gist.

It’s like that episode of The Simpsons where Mr Burns quips about the improbability of nine different misfortunes befalling his professional baseball ring-ins that he had hired to play for his power plant softball team.

It would be easy enough for the rest of the women’s cricket world to get discouraged.

To think that if Australia hasn’t lost given its precarious positions in matches thus far during the World Cup, then it will never happen.

And the Aussies have proven to be Terminator-like in their ability to overcome seemingly any mid-game obstacle.

Consider where Australia has been at various spots during its three completed matches (the game against Sri Lanka was washed out) thus far in the one-day World Cup.

Opposed to New Zealand in Indore, the Aussies were 5-128 in the 22nd over. For most teams that would be a deep hole from which to be dug, but then again most teams don’t have a player the calibre of Gardner coming in at No. 6, nor the support down the order that the all-rounder received in hauling the side to 326, and an eventual 89 run victory.

Things were even dicier at 7-76 and then 8-115 against rank outsiders Pakistan in Colombo. But while the Pakistanis had run through just about every one of the Aussie all-stars, they hadn’t yet accounted for Mooney. A century later, combined with 51 not out from King at No. 10, and the Aussies had eked out 9-221. Having been so close to landing the killer blow, Pakistan didn’t get within 100 in the chase.

And then there was Visakhapatnam, and a clash with tournament co-hosts India, who had shown they could beat the Aussies in the lead-up to the event, and had been billed as the biggest threat to Australia’s throne.

With Smriti Mandhana and Pratika Rawal in command at 0-155 in the 25th over, it was reasonable to ponder whether the home side was building a bridge too far for the defending champions.

Even after Sutherland’s five-wicket haul helped restrict to India to 330 - bowled out in the 49th over - the Aussies were still going to need a world record run chase to continue an unbeaten streak in this competition that dates back to India’s semi-final upset in 2017.

What’s more, Australia was trying to do so with a top order that had been misfiring across the early stages of the tournament.

The task became more challenging when Perry retired hurt with cramps midway through the innings.

But the list of things that have to go wrong for Australia to lose a match is longer than the Nullabor Plain.

This time it was Healy, bashing 142 from 107 balls. There were other useful contributions, while Perry eventually returned to seal the deal with an over and three wickets to spare.

What does it all mean for the cast of challengers? The bad news is, Australia seems to be withstand every punch at the moment. The good news is that the Aussies are at least getting to a point in games where they have to absorb blows.

Eventually someone will find hit that sends them to the canvas, like happened at last year’s Twenty20 World Cup against South Africa. But whether that occurs in the next three weeks of this tournament is another matter.