Amelia Kerr after she broke the world record for the highest women's ODI score. Photo / Photosport.nz
Editorial
Exhausted by her smashing innings, teenage White Fern world-beater Amelia Kerr took a 10-minute nap in Dublin before backing up her batting heroics by putting Ireland to the sword with the ball.
The 17-year-old took five for 17, her best haul in what is a short but hugely promising career.
With Leigh Kasperek, the pair piled on 295 runs in the third ODI against the hapless Irish — the biggest second-wicket partnership in women's ODIs.
Kerr's astonishing innings propelled the Wellington schoolgirl into the record books. She faced 145 balls, and whacked 4,4, and 6 from the last three deliveries to finish undefeated on 232, three better than Australian Belinda Clark's who set the previous women's ODI record score of 229 in 1997.
Kerr's 31 fours was also a women's record, and her total was the third highest ever in the one-day format behind India's Rohit Sharma, who made 264, and clean-hitting Black Cap Martin Guptill, who struck 237 not out against the West Indies.
It is futile to ruminate about which performance was best — far better to embrace Kerr as a superstar in the making who could be turning heads for a decade or more and no doubt helping the women's team to further success.
