Buoyed by self belief and working harder than ever, Beth Mooney has joined some of the game's great as this year's Belinda Clark Award winner
Over the Moons: Beth claims first Belinda Clark Award
Eleven months after playing a key role in Australia's famous T20 World Cup victory, Beth Mooney's sensational rise to the top in the shortest form of the game has been acknowledged with her first Belinda Clark Award.
Mooney was officially crowned Australia's best women's cricketer from the past 12 months at the Australian Cricket Awards, finishing with dual honours having already taken out the T20 Player of the Year gong.
Beth Mooney all formats (Jan 9, 2020 – Jan 19, 2021)
M: 17 | Inns: 17 | Runs: 555 | Ave: 42.69 | SR: 120.13 | 100s: 0 | 50s: 6 | HS: 81no
The 27-year-old Queenslander totalled 60 votes to win the award ahead of captain Meg Lanning with 58 votes, while leg-spinner Georgia Wareham (50) finished third, under the system that factors in votes from players, team officials, media and umpires.
Mooney is the first player outside of Lanning (2014, 2015 & 2017), Ellyse Perry (2016, 2018 & 2020) and Alyssa Healy (2019) to have won the Belinda Clark Award since Jess Duffin in 2013.
The left-hander, who described herself as "just an ordinary human who's picked up a bat and wanted to hit a few runs here and there" after accepting the award, said it would take some time for the honour to sink in.
"We've got some players within the Australian side at the moment who will be remembered for a long time as some of the best we've ever produced and to be playing alongside them, let alone being up on a honour roll next to them for winning this award, is a pretty surreal thing," Mooney said.
Being cast among Australia's top echelon of players is an honour duly deserved given Mooney's prolific form with the bat throughout a voting period that started with the T20 tri-series against India and England last February, took in the T20 World Cup and finished with October's limited-overs series against New Zealand.
During that time Mooney scored more runs than any other Australian woman across both limited-overs formats, amassing 555 at 42.69 – well ahead of Rachael Haynes (456 at 35.07) and Meg Lanning (442 at 49.11).
That included 504 runs at a strike rate of 122.92 the top of the order in 14 T20Is, including six half-centuries, to rise to the No.1 spot in the ICC's T20I batting rankings.
Standout innings through that period included her blazing 51-ball 81 not out against Bangladesh a World Cup group stage match in Canberra, and a crucial 60 in Australia's must-win match against New Zealand at Junction Oval.
However, that knock that will no doubt stick in the minds of most is her 78 not out from 54 deliveries in front of 86,174 in the tournament final against India at the MCG,
Later that evening, she was crowned the Player of the Tournament after setting a new record for most runs scored by a single player in a women's T20 World Cup, breaking Lanning's previous record from 2014 with her 259 runs at 64.75 in six matches.
"The biggest thing is belief," Mooney said of her evolution into one of the world's best.
"Your dream is to pull on the green and gold and I had plenty of people along the way who thought I could do it… but in the end it comes down to whether I thought I could.
"It's been well documented (Australia coach) Matthew Mott had a pretty tough conversation with me four or five years ago about the fact I could be one of the best players in the world if I wanted to.
"It probably took someone like him saying that for me to believe I could get to the top echelon of players around the world."
Mooney was earmarked as a potential Australian star early in her domestic career, carrying the drinks on several tours before breaking into the Australian XI on January 26, 2016.
It has not been all smooth sailing throughout the 95 matches across all formats she has played since; she found herself on the outer of the Australian ODI side at the start of the 2017 Ashes, squeezed out as Australia dropped a batter in place of an extra allrounder.
However, after returning to the XI for the T20 leg of the series – and scoring a century in Canberra – she has not looked back, playing 61 of a possible 62 games across all formats since, missing a sole T20I in Mumbai during that time due to injury.
Someone else who noticed Mooney's potential early and then watched her doggedly to make the most that talent and evolve herself into one of the world's best batters is Australia high performance manager and selector Shawn Flegler.
"A few years ago her mindset changed, and she made a real commitment to being the best she can be," Flegler told cricket.com.au.
"Her commitment to her professionalism around training and that confidence she has now, that she's one of the best in the world.
"She's a really intelligent cricketer, she reads the game really well.
"She plays a couple of roles for us now in T20 and one-day cricket and she's adaptable enough to do that.
"She's formed a great partnership with Midge up the top in T20s which has been great to see, and then that versatility where she can come in at No.5 or 6 in ODIs and play a number of different roles."
Belinda Clark Award
Beth Mooney (60 votes)
Meg Lanning (58 votes)
Georgia Wareham (50 votes)
Women's T20 International Player of the Year
Beth Mooney (30 votes)
Alyssa Healy (18 votes)
Ashleigh Gardner, Megan Schutt and Georgia Wareham (16 votes)
Women's ODI Player of the Year
Rachael Haynes (11 votes)
Meg Lanning (10 votes)
Georgia Wareham (6 votes)