The Australian Team Breaks New Ground as Captain Alyssa Healy Has One Peak Left to Climb.
It's difficult for the Australian squad to set fresh records.
The highest peaks have been successfully scaled.
This is the unit that has won seven Cricket World Cups, plus an additional six T20 titles, and once went over three years unbeaten in 50-over cricket.
The remaining milestones, targeted by the achievement hunters, are what's still available for a team that has accomplished all there is.
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That it took until Sunday's success by three wickets over India for them to accomplish their maiden ODI chase over 300, reclaiming their record for the highest in women's cricket's 50-over format, is, in truth, a tribute to the bowlers that have represented Australia over the last half-century.
It is hard for their batsmen to hold a record if never given the possibility.
Ultimately, the result of Australia giving up 330 runs was skipper Alyssa Healy getting a chance to deliver her latest masterpiece.
Then best known as the teenage relative of renowned former Aussie wicketkeeper Ian, she first played in 2010 after Australia failed to win either of the 20 or 50-over World Cups from the prior year and has seen it all through 15 championship-filled years since.
A T20 World Cup win arrived three months after her bow and seven international trophies have followed from 10 tries across formats.
The gritty keeper was in attendance in Derby in 2017 when a semi-final defeat by India temporarily stopped the successful run.
That loss "pushed us to reconsider our benchmarks," Healy stated recently.
At the next 50-over World Cup in New Zealand, Healy scored 170 against England in the championship match and was declared player of the series. She guaranteed her country would not fall short again.
The question of whether this latest epic knock exceeded that prior achievement is debatable.
Certain people claim the argument supporting final game tension. Others can counter with the test that comes when facing a record target and a loud pro-India audience of 20,000.
What's definite is this century was far harder to predict.
The Christchurch destruction in 2022 happened while she led the batting statistics, but this performance was preceded by six games in India from the beginning of the previous month in which she had failed to pass 30.
"For those following me in the nets, it has been a frustrating experience because I feel like my form was missing completely," said Healy.
"Yet the moment you enter the playing area, your competitive instincts activate and you completely engage with the match."
Healy's competitiveness has always been her major advantage - and an irreplaceable characteristic in replacing legendary former captain Meg Lanning.
She was challenged by India's emerging talent Kranti Gaud in the previous month's ODI series, dismissed by the 22-year-old seamer in each encounter, but here that only provided Healy's inspiration.
One run resulted off Gaud's first delivery and from that point the right-hander was underway.
"A chance to play and face the challenge with her and simply enjoy myself that way, sort of got me going," stated Healy.
She achieved fifty in 35 deliveries - her swiftest at a World Cup - and her hundred in 84 as she punished short deliveries, scoring 21 fours and three maximums.
When she was removed Australia needed 66 more at run per delivery - an achievable target now demanding an easy conclusion.
"Chasing 330 runs is new territory so I'm happy we have the assurance to accomplish that now," continued Healy.
"Ideally we won't need to do it another time but, if we do, we know we can do it."
That comment will be the last competing nations at this championship want to hear.
During the last week a belief they will win from any position has grown stronger - this triumph succeeding victory over Pakistan by 107-run victory despite sitting at 76-7 at one stage.
Following this Australia face Bangladesh before an encounter with old rivals England in Indore in ten days, by which point a semi-final place may well be secure.
It was in the semi-finals they were eliminated from the prior year's T20 World Cup in an unexpected loss by South Africa - a match Healy was absent due to damaged tissue in her foot as she led her country for the inaugural occasion at a significant event.
Such is her determination, she subsequently stated she wished she had played with the discomfort.
Yet even as she afterwards confessed those injuries have postponed consideration of ending her career, this World Cup is likely to be her last as captain in one-day cricket and she is still to achieve a world championship as captain.
Triumph in India would bring her to the top of her last major obstacle.