Beth Mooney is a paradox. For someone who can handle the fire of the most impossible of situations, she is remarkably poor at handling actual heat and humidity.

The Australian batting mainstay put on a masterclass for the ages, helping her side recover from 76 for seven to 221 for nine by scoring a quintessential ‘boring’ century against Pakistan in a Women’s ODI World Cup match at the R. Premadasa Stadium here on Wednesday.

“I was typically dying when I got back into the changing room after the innings break. I dunked my head into ice water. Changed all my clothes and sat in the air-con before it was time to go.”

“Honestly, I was thinking how much my feet hurt at one point. We scored pretty freely towards the very end, and I did wonder if we could have done that a little bit earlier. But, 220 ended up being more than enough.”

“My method in the nets when I had a hit with Dan Marsh was to really commit if I was going to come out and try and hit down the ground as hard as I could, or to sit deep and still hit it as hard. It seemed like the ball, when it was a little bit fuller, wasn’t coming on as nicely when the batters were playing out in front of them.”

“I knew we had a long time to bat, so we didn’t have to do anything too rash,” Mooney, who stood guard for 42 overs, said.