Zimbabwe Women’s captain Mary-Anne Musonda has registered her name in the history books of cricket by becoming the first African woman to hit an ODI century on debut. She also became only the sixth woman ever and second in the 21st century to hit a century on debut.
Musonda remained unbeaten on 103 in what was also a great chase by the Zimbabwe Women in their first-ever official ODI. Apart from Musonda, two English Women in Derryth Thomas and Enid Bakewell (1973), two Indian Women in Reshma Gandhi and Mithali Raj (1999) and Australian Nicole Bolton (2014) have achieved the feat of scoring a century on their debut.
Musonda is now also in the elite list of women who scored their maiden ODI century in their debut match, which was also the debut match of their team. Derryth Thomas and Enid Bakewell are the other two to have achieved this feat.
Zimbabwe, which became the 18th team in women’s cricket history to be awarded official ODI status in April 2021, are playing their maiden ODI series against a touring Ireland Women’s team, who have been an ODI member since 2021 and have played 149 matches till now.
In the very first match, played at the iconic Harare Sports Club in Harare, the Zimbabwe women decided to field first after winning the toss and after having restricted Ireland Women to only 172-4 in the first forty overs, lost the plot a bit in the last 10 overs of the first innings and let the Irish women score 81 runs in the last 10 overs to get to 253-8.
Chasing that total, Zimbabwe weren’t really off to a great start and lost two wickets for 25 runs only. But it was only after this that the 30-year-old skipper came to the crease and took matters into her own hands. She built partnerships continuously and remained unbeaten till the end to see her team through with a four-wicket win.
The two teams will clash against each other in three more games in this series, which is also working as a preparatory tournament for the ICC 2022 Women’s ODI World Cup Qualifiers, which would be played in November in Zimbabwe.