Australia keeper-batter Beth Mooney has a stacked trophy cabinet. Four World titles, a Commonwealth gold medal, three Women’s Big Bash crowns, a Women’s National Cricket League title, and two Belinda Clark Awards (given to Australia’s best international woman cricketer) are just some of her many laurels.
This meteoric success didn’t come overnight. Boring Beth – as she loves to describe herself – spent the first part of her life proving people wrong.
As an eight-year-old, when playing with the boys, she was predominantly stationed at fine leg, a position she admits was usually kept for the worst fielder. Over time, however, her peers saw her value in the field. In her early years in the Australian setup, head coach Matthew Mott reprimanded her for her subpar fitness levels. Today, she sets the bar for endurance in the squad alongside the likes of Ellyse Perry.
Her first tryst with the Women’s Premier League was marred by injury and the second by failure as captain – with her franchise, Gujarat Giants, finishing last in both editions. This year, Mooney, free from the burdens of captaincy, played a key role in helping the Giants pull off a remarkable turnaround to make the Eliminator for the first time.
Straight talker
At the end of the 2024 iteration of the league, she candidly admitted that the team should look past her for the captaincy role.
“No one really noticed it, but management looked at it a few months later and thought it was probably a bit honest,” the keeper-batter told Sportstar on the sidelines of the WPL.
“When opportunities come to have that ‘C’ next to my name, I don’t really jump at it too much. From my point of view, I am 31. I am not going to and don’t have a desire to captain Australia. I think I am a bit of a quiet leader, away from the spotlight and making moves behind the scenes.”
This year, the armband went to her compatriot Ashleigh Gardner, and the senior pro was by her side, helping with field settings and bowling changes while also absorbing pressure with the bat. Mooney finished with 237 runs (only second to Gardner in the GG setup) with two fifties, including an unbeaten 96 against UP Warriorz.
“My focus was solely on getting as many runs on the board as a collective as possible. A 100 for me would have been nice. A 200 in that game would have been nice, but it didn’t pan out.”
Road less taken
The big-hitting, explosive trends in the game are diametrically opposite to the technical and quiet Mooney, but both offer a Robert Frost-esque option to the art of T20 batting.
“I think I’m flying the flag for strategy and placement in T20 cricket rather than boom and bust everywhere. And it’s a tough battle to fight. There’s a few people out there who probably think that I should be going a bit quicker earlier or hitting the ball harder earlier or whatever it might be, but sometimes the situation or the conditions just don’t allow for that. Certainly, my mindset every time I walk out there is to try and get as many runs as I can as quickly as I can,” Mooney explains.
Her numbers reflect that attitude. In a format where the role of the anchor has been all but decried, Mooney is the glue that often holds an innings together.
“I have to stick to what’s worked for me, and that doesn’t mean resting on my laurels. I am still evolving, and perhaps what that looks like for me is different from the Grace Harrises and Deandra Dottins of the world. I like the fact that when I walk out to bat, the opposition captain is thinking hard about how she is going to get me out.”
While Mooney’s poker-faced, glassy-eyed exterior might intimidate those around her, three seasons in, the occasional request for batting tips has started filtering in. Her aim has been to foster tactical independence.
“Understanding the game and conditions better and knowing your strengths in those scenarios are key. For example, in India, the outfields are lightning quick, so for a boundary, you only need to hit it on either side of cover really hard or along the ground. It doesn’t always have to be that big-risk six.
“When people get fixated on hitting sixes and trying to hit the ball in the air, they lose their shape and perhaps try and hit it too hard and don’t get as stable. Meg (Lanning) is a good example of someone who can take the game away from you without you really noticing because she plays classical cricket shots and focuses on placement rather than risks. So it gets hard to get her out.
“We have a good balance of both approaches in our line-up. We have a Dottin, Gardner, Bharti (Fulmali) and Simran (Shaikh). We have people like Phoebe (Litchfield) and me who are more placement-driven, and we might just all end up with the same strike rate, but we just do it a little differently.”
Mooney is the only remnant of the old ‘Mithali Raj-Rachel Haynes-Nooshin Al Khadeer’ think tank that operated the franchise in the earlier seasons. Alongside head coach Michael Klinger, who took charge last season, the Australians have been trying to foster a culture of transparency and confidence in the group.
A calm leader off the field, a fierce competitor on it — Beth Mooney’s impact goes beyond runs.
| Photo Credit:
PTI
A calm leader off the field, a fierce competitor on it — Beth Mooney’s impact goes beyond runs.
| Photo Credit:
PTI
“I just think it was a testament to the culture that Michael has created,” Mooney said about GG’s gutsy chase in its final league fixture – albeit in a losing cause – against Mumbai Indians. Had the Giants won that game – and given MI lost its final home game to RCB – GG might just have burst past Delhi Capitals to make the final. But it wasn’t to be.
“He gave everyone the confidence to go. Just having a coach and support staff around gave the team that kind of belief that we could do it if we tried. Everyone walked out there feeling like it was their time to win the game for us.”
Benchmark
Mooney, in particular, has stern words for her colleagues when standards aren’t met on the field.
“You’ve got to know when the right time to pull them up on stuff is and when you’ve got to pat them on the back. There’s probably only been one occasion in this tournament where I’ve had to really rev them up on the field, and they seem to respond really well to that. You don’t want to have to use it all the time because it loses its impact.”
But even Mooney says there is still more to learn. A competitive Australian ecosystem and a steady assembly line of youngsters who idolise her but would be happy to replace her keep her on her toes.
“Everyone just wants to get better. Nobody slacks off. Everyone’s really fit. They’re in the gym, they’re running, and they’re training hard. No one’s got a set spot in the team. It’s easy to get better when the people around you are getting better as well.”
This was perfect timing for Mooney. After winning the 2022 ODI World Cup, she struggled briefly to find direction.
“We’d won pretty much everything. What do we do now?” she remembers thinking.
A pillar of Australia’s golden era in women’s cricket, Beth Mooney continues to set new standards.
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images
A pillar of Australia’s golden era in women’s cricket, Beth Mooney continues to set new standards.
| Photo Credit:
Getty Images
Mooney has navigated the uncertainties of life and cricket and everything in between by learning to be still in the face of adversity. It’s a quality that has helped her churn out clutch performances time and again.
“To be honest, I just think being up and down would be exhausting. When there’s a four or a six, everyone’s up and cheering, but if there’s a wicket, things get pretty flat. So I try not to waste my energy riding the emotions of cricket in a three-hour window. Staying neutral helps you perform your best and make good decisions.”
Her balanced approach has made her a tough opponent, with India being her most frequent victim, especially in T20Is.
Consistency has its own place in a world of flamboyance. Mooney has made hers at the top of the rankings in the format. The madness of perfection – which Lanning spoke of when explaining her decision to retire – once consumed Mooney too. She would do her classes at university, finish work as a ‘checkout chick’ at Woolworths, and train around it all.
She now has a century in all formats of the game, completing the set at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground, where this Australian team won the 2020 T20 World Cup in front of a record 86,174-strong crowd. Mooney’s unbeaten 54-ball 78 is often not remembered in comparison to Alyssa Healy’s 79-run blitz off just 39 balls. For the Brisbane-based cricketer, it doesn’t matter. All she wants is the win and the satisfaction of contributing to it.
“I don’t know if there’s really a formula (to being good in all formats). I think it would be worth a lot of money if we could come up with one, that’s for sure. I’ve been exposed to a lot of different situations and scenarios on the cricket field. I always go back to using that as data to show myself that I’m doing something right. Pressure is a privilege. What we face on the cricket field is nothing compared to the real problems people have outside it. It’s really easy to get caught up in how big the game is when, in fact, it’s just another 120 balls.”
