In the 45th over, Gardner was on 90 and facing Nate Syver-Brant when the England all-rounder pushed a delivery down the leg side which Gardner was able to take advantage of, leaving him for 99 with a single off the last delivery of the over. Lauren Bell. He followed up with a point before pulling the bell through square leg.
Gardner said, “Because I hadn’t scored many centuries throughout my cricketing career I felt I would be really nervous in the 90s.” “Thanks to me, Nat bowled a couple under the leg and I was able to get them to the boundary and the race in the 90s.
“The rest fell into place and I was able to get that milestone. It’s definitely something I can be really proud of. I’ve played a lot of international games and haven’t quite made that mark… to reach that was quite emotional, but it ticked off. It was pretty cool.”
Gardner slumped to 59 for 4 with Australia but managed to put together a 95-run stand with Beth Mooney and 83-ball 103 with Tahlia McGrath before George Wareham’s 12-ball 38 ended the innings.
Gardner made a conscious effort to pressure England’s leading spinner Sophie Ecclestone, against whom she scored 24 off 29 balls in what became Ecclestone’s second costliest return in ODIs.
“For me and Moon, it’s just about building a partnership and easing the nerves a little bit and putting people at ease,” Gardner said. “The talk goes on only to put pressure on them. I know, batting in such conditions, you go back into your shell.
“For me it doesn’t really work because then I go too far the other way, so I still try to be really active. I’ve tried to push Ecclestone again, which sometimes worked and sometimes didn’t. I guess that made it. Change some of that, and that’s what I was trying to do.
“The messages were the same with T-Mac [McGrath]. T-Mac’s bat was probably the best it’s been in a long time. He just took a lot of pressure off me. I didn’t feel like I was the one who had to keep going hard.”
Gardner capped his performance with a superb parried boundary catch late in England’s innings to remove Ecclestone.
“I was probably a few steps away from the ropes, knowing he was hitting the ball pretty hard and far,” he said. “After the initial catch, that was it [about] Trying to get my momentum up basically doesn’t fall on the rope. It was one of those things where instinct kicks in and you throw the ball back and hope you catch it on the rebound.
“I ended up making some food out of it, and I’m sure people will probably say I put some mayo in it. I didn’t mean for it to catch on like that, but I will.”
“I know there was a kind of redemption in the last one we played after the white ball series [last] ash “We couldn’t accept it,” Gardner said. “I think the standard we showed today was probably the most clinical batting performance we’ve ever put out there. We played on some tricky wickets, so it really exposed us at times and we were able to overcome that.
“Knowing that we’re going into T20s, which is probably England’s best format, taking confidence from what we’ve done in these last three ODIs in those first T20s, I thought England probably wouldn’t do that. We’ve got the same confidence as we do, so we Should really enjoy it.”
After 59 for 4 turned into 300 overs, England still had a chance of 200 for 4, needing 109 from 80 balls, but when Danny Watt-Hodge caught Phoebe Lichfield brilliantly, they lost 6 for 22.
“Those crucial moments, when the game is on the line, they are [Australia] Seems to be able to cope really well with them. We couldn’t seize the moment a bit and really capitalize on any advantage we had. It’s something we need to do a little bit better, can we go after that when we’re in a crucial moment of the match? Let’s go and win this. So hopefully we can show some progress in the T20s.”
Andrew McGlashan is a deputy editor at ESPNcricinfo
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