Beth Mooney and Alana King chatted runs, wickets, titles and success on this week's edition of The Surge Podcast
The 'ultimate problem solver' reveals the key to her success
No one has scored more runs than Beth Mooney in the WBBL, but the Perth Scorchers star insists she'd give a few thousand of them away if it meant adding more Big Bash titles to her resume.
Mooney became the first player to pass 5,000 runs in WBBL|10, and after scoring a century early in Weber WBBL|11 is currently on 5,215, 403 runs clear of second-placed Ellyse Perry (4,812) on the league's all-time scoring list.
The 31-year-old's remarkable consistency saw her score 400-plus runs in each of the first nine seasons, and when the league was shortened to 10 regular season games last season, she scored 386.
She's also a three-time title winner, having helped the Heat lift the cup in WBBL|04 and |05 before doing the same with the Scorchers in WBBL|07.
Speaking on The Surge podcast this week, where she was joined by Scorchers and Australia teammate Alana King, Mooney put her tremendous consistency down to her competitiveness, and a desire to repay the faith shown in her by coaches and selectors.
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"It's really hard when you're living it to look back and appreciate what opportunities you've been given and how you've been able to handle them as well," Mooney said.
"I think that's one thing I pride myself on, is taking those opportunities and making sure I repay the favour, so to speak, of people that have given me the chances along the way or thought that I could be good enough along the way.
"From my point of view, at the moment, I'd still prefer a few more WBBL titles next to my name, if you took off a few runs off that tally.
"But if I'm still contributing and scoring runs and helping the people around me get better, and winning titles wherever I go, then hopefully I'll play for a few more years and then be able to look back and go, gee, I did some pretty cool stuff along the way.
"But at the moment, all I think about is there's another game to play, there's more runs to score, and more players to help get the best out of themselves."
Mooney has a reputation for standing up in the toughest situations, when the odds are stacked against either herself or her team.
That was never truer than during Australia's ODI World Cup campaign, when they were in a world of bother at 7-76 against Pakistan in Colombo.
Mooney shared in a 106-run ninth-wicket partnership with King, scoring 109 from 114 deliveries as Australia ultimately posted a match-winning total of 9-221.
"I just think 'Moons' is the ultimate problem solver," King noted on The Surge podcast.
"I think when we've been in situations up shit creek, I think Moons is really clear on what the job at hand is, and she wants to get it done.
"Chatting with Moons for 12, 15 overs of that game (against Pakistan) was very special and to see her get a hundred at the end of that, I think for me as a mate, was one of my proudest moments of her career.
"It just epitomises what you do in a situation (like that) and you've got someone out there who is that determined to get us into a good position."
In typical self-deprecating Mooney fashion, the left-hander initially shrugged off the praise, saying she'd only be "an absolute wreck" on the sidelines if she wasn't out in the middle having a direct impact on the match.
But she also conceded it was a point of pride, with the ability to perform under intense pressure a skill she had honed over the course of her career.
"I take pride in opposition teams feeling like they're not in the game when I'm out there, when they probably felt like they were (in it) at certain points," Mooney said.
"The competitive nature of my personality is that I want to be the one out there doing the role that's required and presented to me, and I probably thrive a little bit more in those circumstances.
"And I haven't always – that took a long time to get my head around being able to do that and also understand that you're not going to be that successful as a batter in T20 cricket.
"Kirby Short and I played a lot of cricket together for a long time, and we came up with the rule that you were going to be successful about six per cent of the time.
"And success to us meant, we would score runs and the team would win, or one of our best mates would do well and the team would win.
"We worked out it doesn't happen very often, so you've got to take it with a grain of salt when you do and when you don't, and move on to the next thing pretty quickly.
"But I guess being so competitive, I just want to be out there contributing to the result for the team."
Weber WBBL|11 Standings
| Team | M | W | L | T | N/R | NRR | Ded. | PTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1
HUR
|
10 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0.662 | 0 | 15 |
|
2
SIX
|
10 | 6 | 3 | 0 | 1 | -0.313 | 0 | 13 |
|
3
SCO
|
10 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 0 | -0.132 | 0 | 12 |
|
4
STA
|
10 | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 0.629 | 0 | 11 |
|
5
REN
|
10 | 5 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0.121 | 0 | 10 |
|
6
STR
|
10 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 0.077 | 0 | 9 |
|
7
THU
|
10 | 4 | 5 | 0 | 1 | -0.124 | 0 | 9 |
|
8
HEA
|
10 | 0 | 9 | 0 | 1 | -0.869 | 0 | 1 |
M: Matches played
W: Wins
L: Losses
T: Ties
N/R: No results
NRR: Net Run Rate
Ded.: Deductions
PTS: Total points