da bwin： Sutherland was inspired by peak Perry, now she’s getting up there herself

da bet7： Alex Malcolm31-Jan-2025Annabel Sutherland took a breath and paused as she thought about the opening question of a press conference after she scored 163 at the MCG in an Ashes Test.She was asked how it feels to be the first woman to score a century at Test cricket’s original venue, and one of it’s grandest and most storied as well.”Pretty strange, to be honest,” Sutherland said. “But I think just given the occasion and being a Victorian as well, it’s pretty cool. And I’m sure I’ll reflect over it over the next few days.”Related

Annabel Sutherland: WPL will provide intel about India before the World Cup

When Alana King did a Shane Warne

King's Ball of the Century sets up Australia's 16-0 Ashes whitewash

Georgia Voll's field of dreams boosts healthy crop of Australian talent

Sutherland century buries England amid woeful catching display

In some ways it is fitting it is Sutherland. She has grown up at this venue. Her father James was Cricket Australia chief executive for the first 17 years of her life. CA’s offices are literally across the road.”The amount of time I’ve spent at the ‘G as a young kid, watching a lot of cricket, a lot of Boxing Day Tests, and then watching the [Geelong] Cats play too at the ‘G in the winter [in the Australian Football League],” Sutherland said.”I love the venue and what it means, I guess, as a Victorian so definitely this will sit pretty high up there I’d say.”In other ways, as Sutherland noted, it’s strange. There has been no women’s Tests here since 1949 when Australia’s best player was another allrounder Victorian in Betty Wilson, who Sutherland equalled today with three Test centuries, the most for an Australian woman alongside another in Jill Kennare.So many great female players have played for Australia in between times and never got the chance to play a Test match at this venue. Meg Lanning is Victoria’s greatest ever female batter, and arguably Australia’s, yet in a 13-year career she played just six Tests in total and none of them here.Annabel Sutherland batted like she would never get out•AFP/Getty ImagesIt is significant too that Ellyse Perry, arguably one Australia’s finest athletes let alone female cricketers, is playing her first Test here too.And it is because of Perry’s hip injury that Sutherland got her first chance to bat at No. 3 in a Test match.”I said yes pretty quickly, before Shel[ley Nitschke] could even ask the question,” Sutherland said. “Just a good opportunity to get up there.”It feels like the baton has been passed from Perry to Sutherland over the last year in all formats. Perry had long been Australia’s best Test player. That title belongs to Sutherland now scoring back-to-back Test centuries, becoming the first woman in history to post consecutive 150 plus scores.Perry’s dominance had meant Sutherland had to bide her time, scoring Test centuries at No. 8 and then No. 6 and now No. 3. Perry’s exemplary standards as a professional have also helped shape Sutherland into the player she is. She loves Test-match batting as much as Perry does.”Just the time I think that you’ve got to build an innings,” Sutherland said. “I absolutely love batting, and I think you’ve got time to work through those waves of ebbs and flows of the game. And I think just recognising those moments is something I do pretty well and trying to grind out those tougher periods and then cashing in when you can.”Like Perry, England are now finding it near-on impossible to bowl to Sutherland as Ryana MacDonald-Gay articulated.”It’s very difficult,” MacDonald-Gay said. “She batted very well today. She was hard to sort of try and figure out where to bowl, because you just felt that you were never going to get her out. It was hard.”There have been 23,561 people come through the gates over the past two days, a world record for a women’s Test match, and all of them got to see Sutherland bat.She seems destined to inspire a whole new generation and be a household name at the MCG.