Bat, nap, bowl and Love Island
A world record with the bat, a quick nap, career-best bowling figures and all rinsed down with a dose of reality TV.
By any teenager’s standards, it’s pretty much the perfect day.
At just 17, White Ferns allrounder Amelia Kerr has already been tagged as a potential superstar for a couple of years and last week she proved the hype is real with a recordbreaking score of 232 not out against Ireland in Dublin.
She scored more than half of her team’s total of 440-3, becoming the youngest ever cricketer to score a double-century in international cricket, a record previously held by Javed Miandad in tests when he was 19.
Opening the innings, Kerr blasted 31 fours and two sixes in her 145-ball knock to better Australian Belinda Clark’s 229 not out set back in 1997.
And Kerr’s breakout day was not done there - even though she did need a quick nap before her career-best 5-17 with the ball to help her side to a 305-run win.
‘‘After my innings, I had a little nap,’’ Kerr said of her 10-minute sleep on the physio table during the lunch break.
A quick nap was understandable after the Tawa College student carried her bat through the entire 50 overs of the White Ferns’ innings.
So surely an early night was on the cards following the demanding but rewarding day? Not when there is reality TV to catch up on.
‘‘I will sleep well, I have to stay up until 10 o’clock to finish Love Island but then we’ll be in bed,’’ Kerr said.
Sadly for Kerr’s proud parents Robbie and Jo, who arrived in Ireland on the day of the match, they missed seeing their daughter’s phenomenal performance.
The young leg-spinner said her body was hurting a bit but given the success of the day, she was happy to embrace the pain.
’’It’s pretty surreal,’’ Kerr said.
As she continued to plunder boundaries late in her innings, the Wellington all-rounder was blissfully unaware of the history she was creating.
‘‘I had no idea. I think I heard them say stuff on the speaker but I didn’t hear them because everyone was clapping,’’ Kerr said.
Her previous best score in any form of cricket was a 152 for Wellington against Otago in an under-21 match.
When Kerr reached her century she had no plans of giving her wicket away. Despite her lack of experience at international level, she had a solid plan in the middle.
‘‘Put the bad ball away but keep scoring off most balls and then I knew the power play was coming soon.
‘‘Once we got to the power play with only three out I was going to try and go hard then,’’ Kerr said.
She said her partnership with Leigh Kasperek - the second highest in ODI history - enabled her to bat with aggression because they were not losing wickets.
They put on 285 runs for the second-wicket in a partnership that lasted 33 overs.
When she did return to the middle for the second innings, Kerr was expecting White Ferns captain Suzie Bates to go easy on her.
‘‘I didn’t think I was actually going to bowl today. I thought Suzie was just going to let me have a rest in the field standing at slip all day,’’ she said.
But Kerr soon became thankful for the opportunity as she spun her way to career-best figures.