Bolton on cloud nine after century against West Indies

Nicole Bolton felt she was living her Australian dream as she helped her side begin its ICC Women’s World Cup title defence in style with victory over the West Indies at Taunton.

The opener batted through for a magnificent 107 not out to guide Australia to an eight-wicket win, chasing down 205 in a repeat of the 2013 ICC WWC final.

Her innings included 14 glorious boundaries, with the 171-run partnership alongside fellow opener Beth Mooney the cornerstone in the chase, easing her way to a third Women’s One Day International century in the process.

“Our bowlers did an outstanding job, we know how damaging West Indies can be and to be able to pick up key wickets at key moments was crucial in us only having to chase down 205,” she said.

“To go out there with a really good opening partnership really set the tone, we were able to work our way into the innings which was good.

“I’m so excited to be here, when I was out there it didn’t feel like this was happening because it was so much fun – here we are in the first game in the World Cup for our country, and there are not too many things better than that.”

Discipline was the key component of Australia’s bowling, as Ellyse Perry took three wickets while Jess Jonassen and Kristen Beams took two apiece.

The West Indies struggled to put regular partnerships together at Taunton, with Hayley Matthews (46) and captain Stafanie Taylor (45) top-scoring as boundaries were unable to flow freely, with the pressure to up the scoring rate resulting in all 10 wickets falling.

“It was a good wicket to bat on, we didn’t rotate the strike enough,” said batter Chedean Nation. “We saw with Australia, it batted more positively than us.

“We came here in good form, we didn’t have stage-fright and we know what we’re about, it was just one of those games and we’ll look to bounce back from that.

“All in all, the girls saw where they went wrong and we’ll go back to the drawing board in training, and work on our mistakes.”