A little bit of variety is valued a great deal in life; on the dining table, in the wardrobe, in your wishlist of books and movies…you get the drift. On the cricket field, and particularly in this Women's World Cup, it's hard to match the variety in the Australia squad, and even the variety of trickery with which their allrounder Annabel Sutherland can deceive opposition batters, primarily using her fingers and wrist.
Thanks to one of the few benefits of the length of the 50-over game, Sutherland's exemplary bowling display against India on Sunday showed its full range through three different spells. Initially, it looked as though her focus would be on containment, but eventually she ended up inducing a collapse of 6 for 36 on what was probably the flattest pitch of this World Cup.
Sutherland's timing of shining through was also on point - on her 24th birthday - and in front of a sold-out crowd in Visakhapatnam, which had neither bought tickets to see Australia edge the hosts nor to see some changes of pace help take down India's established batters on a pitch that was made for runs.
Sutherland was first handed the ball after 10 overs, by which stage India had added 58 without losing a wicket and without any troubles. By the time she had sent down her first four deliveries, all to Pratika Rawal, Sutherland had already used the first type of arrow from her quiver: pace. Rawal, on 26 off 32 at the time, was struggling to middle the deliveries that had pace and came off an accurate line and length in the corridor. On the fourth delivery, which happened to be the fastest of the over at 117kph, Rawal finally found a single and went off strike.
As a batter, you would think the same pace-on strategy would continue in her next over? Cute. This time Sutherland started bowling offcutters and Rawal was visibly frustrated by her inability to connect properly with the first four balls, before she mistimed a pull to the leg side and the catch fell just short of a diving Ashleigh Gardner, going through for four. Even then, a four-run over made it two overs for just six, while her first spell of 16 runs in four overs was already standing out in an innings that was picking up pace.
With the runs flowing and not a wicket in sight, captain Alyssa Healy opted for more bowling changes which delivered the wicket of Smriti Mandhana, but India were nicely poised at 192 for 1 after 30 overs. Enter Sutherland again. The ball was old, the pitch still hard, the sell-out crowd starting to get its money's worth and the innings heading towards an imperious finish.
Sutherland pounded the ball into the pitch at 111.3kph and forced Rawal into a pull that wasn't going to clear Ellyse Perry in the deep. With the two set openers gone, Sutherland now started to play with the new batters and her full repertoire started to come out: the offcutter, the cross-seamed delivery, the back-of-the-hand slower ball and the slower bouncer. By now she had seen the pitch enough to know which delivery to bowl at which point, to which batter, and at what length. While Sutherland was doing her thing from one end, Alana King had started to find some drift, turn and bounce to prevent the batters from getting away with it at the other.
"I think Belsy's (Sutherland's) spell, I think we got our length right in that department," Healy said after the game. "I think we bowled a little bit poorly at times and probably gave India an opportunity to cash in. Whether that be at the start of the over or the end of the over, we couldn't really create a lot of pressure, but I think Alana King and Annabel Sutherland actually created a little bit of a partnership there; created some pressure, created some opportunities, and then Belsy cashed in at her end."
In the end, Sutherland was given the ball again when 42 overs were done and India were headed towards a massive total through Jemimah Rodrigues and Richa Ghosh, who were riding on their rapid fifty stand off just 30 balls. But just as Healy had said before this game, having watched South Africa's win against India, Australia had a decent idea about what to do and when at this ground. Healy and Sutherland would have known that pace-on was not going to work in this situation.
And so off went the pace. Sutherland dug a back-of-the-hand slower ball into the pitch which Ghosh didn't get as much distance on and found long-on in the 45th over. In her next over, Sutherland bowled so slow - easily slower than some of the quicker spinners - at just 87.5kph, and Rodrigues mistimed it completely, straight down the ground. Kranti Gaud suffered a similar fate soon afterwards.
To get the better of India's No. 11, Shree Charani, Sutherland was almost showing off. She used the scrambled seam from around the wicket at 106.4kph, and the tailender could only edge it onto her stumps to give Sutherland her maiden ODI five-for.
More than 660 runs were eventually scored in Visakhapatnam, boundaries came thick and fast, and runs were hard to stop in most stages. Yet, one bowler finished with an economy rate of 4.06 and sent down 36 dots. How's that for variety?