By Helen Maynard-Casely

Grace Harris celebrates her century with batting partner Georgia Redmayne who also reached the milestone later in the innings.

Queensland Fire were propelled by centuries from Grace Harris and Georgia Redmayne to victory in the 2025/26 Women’s National Cricket League today at Cricket Central in Sydney. Having featured in the last three finals, this was third time lucky for the Queensland team, also enacting revenge on NSW Breakers who had swiped the Ruth Preddey Cup from their grasp last season. In a close match, made more dramatic by weather interruptions and a revised DLS-affected target, the day’s theatre was directed by the batters out in the field.

After winning the toss and deciding to bat, Queensland knew they would need a good total to defend. But the Breakers were first to strike, with captain Lauren Cheatle continuing her habit of taking early wickets by beating the inside edge of Jess Jonassen to dislodge the bails. A few overs later Matilan Brown struck when Charli Knott edged her delivery to the keeper’s gloves, sending Knott back to the sheds for a duck. However, the Breakers’ commanding early position was effectively dismantled by a huge third wicket partnership of 192 runs built by Redmayne and Harris. Harris was in particularly devastating form, probably smarting from little time at crease during recent international stints, she expanded into her innings from early hard drives down the ground, to later pull shots for 6. In true Harris tradition her batting caused one ball to be abandoned on a roof, and nearly had another lost in the scrub around the oval. Her disciplined batting gave little chances for the NSW fielders, with one notable exception when Cheatle dropped a sitter off Sarah Coyte’s bowling. After completing her century Grace Harris looked set to continue, but fell soon to some wily bowling from veteran Georgia Adams – Harris departing for 111 off of 94 balls. The relief of breaking the Harris-Redmayne partnership was short-lived as Lauren Winfield-Hill set about her batting at pace, reaching 50 runs from only 30 deliveries. By the time Redmayne and Winfield-Hill were both caught off Coyte’s bowling in the 46th over, 296 runs were on the board. An end of innings push by the lower order Queensland batters took the innings total to 332: the biggest WNCL innings total at Cricket Central so far, beating the 309 the Breakers scored against Queensland a month ago.

NSW openers Tahlia Wilson and Alyssa Healy got to the business of the chase in fine style, unruffled by the magnitude of the task. With ominous clouds building, there were probably back-room instructions to keep ahead of the DLS par should the game be ended prematurely. Healy, in her last ever professional match, brought her experience to the task and kept a measured pace such that the score was always just neatly ahead of the DLS par. Wilson followed suit, and between them they put on a 121 run partnership before Healy placed her final short in professional cricket into the hands of Ruby Strange, just as the rain started to fall. Katie Mack joined Wilson at the crease, but only two overs later play was suspended as lightning crackled around the ground – NSW at this stage were 1/129 and ahead of the DLS par score.

Alyssa Healy, departing from the crease in her last professional game.

A long break ensued, and while the ground was spared the dramatic storms that drove over Sydney that afternoon, the proximity of the lightning kept players from returning to the ground until 5:35pm, much to the increasing frustration of the Queensland players. With the NSW innings shortened to 32 overs and a revised DLS target of 220 runs – the wet outfield and looming darkness were to provide additional challenges to the run rate for the NSW batters.

But Wilson and Mack charged in an electric atmosphere created by the crowd, setting the tone with aggressive running between the wickets to not only put pressure on the Queensland field but also to keep up to the run rate. Needing 91 runs from 9 overs at the resumption of play, four overs later Wilson and Mack had put on 44 runs and were beginning to look in control of this challenging chase. But Jess Jonassen changing ends seemed to be the magic twist that the Queensland team needed, and in the 28th over they forced the run out of Wilson, a few balls before Katie Mack was caught in the deep by Grace Harris. New batters Anika Learoyd and Georgia Adams arrived at the crease and the next stage of this all-or-nothing chase began. Learoyd and Adams battled valiantly and continued to pressure the Queensland field, such that even when a running mix-up occurred, the Fire were not able to execute the run out. But the pressure of the run rate was also showing on the batting, and Learoyd fell making a valiant push for boundaries, Charli Knott taking a catch just inside the rope in the penultimate over. With 15 needed off the last over, Jonassen took the ball and bowled tightly enough that Adams and Maitlan Brown were unable to get more than 2 runs from any delivery. Brown was run out, and then Adams was caught off the last ball, sealing Queensland’s victory by just 7 runs.

Helen (Crystallised Cricket) is a writer based in Dharug and Gundagarra country, and here is writing about a game played on Dharug country. She acknowledges the traditional owners of the lands that she writes from.