Queensland great Jess Jonassen will celebrate her 100th Women’s National Cricket League appearance tomorrow as the Fire face the tantalising prospect of qualifying for the Final later this month.
JJ Set For Milestone Match
The Fire defeated Victoria by 50 runs on Thursday to maintain second place in the three-way battle with South Australia and Western Australia to clinch a spot in the Final against NSW in Sydney next Saturday.
Jonassen, who announced she had stepped down as captain of the Fire and WBBL Brisbane Heat earlier this week, will join former Queensland and Australian legends Julia Price and Melissa Bulow as players to have played 100 or more List A games for Queensland.
Since making her debut as a Year 11 student from Rockhampton in 2008, Jonassen has played 99 WNCL matches, scoring 2123 runs and taking 160 wickets.
Jonassen also played 63 WT20 matches for Queensland prior to the advent of the WBBL, where she has now played 156 matches for the Brisbane Heat.
She has represented Australia in six Tests, 93 One Day Internationals and 105 T20 Internationals.
Jonassen will receive a special presentation to mark her milestone before play tomorrow and reflected on how appropriate it was to achieve her century on the same ground where she made her debut in November 2008.
“This is an important game for us so the main focus tomorrow will be on what we need to achieve as a team, but it is nice to be able to enjoy the moment with my family and friends at Allan Border Field,’’ she said.
“I was coming down from Rockhampton with Mum a lot in that year while I was still at school and so I had her watching on when it came to play for the first time for Queensland,’’ she said.
“What I remember from that first game was batting 11 and having a little partnership with ‘DK’ (Delissa Kimmince) at the end, where we annoyed NSW by hanging around and getting a few runs.”
Jonassen went wicketless in her first game but broke through in the return clash a few days later when her maiden dismissal was Australian regular Lisa Sthalekar followed by rising allrounder Ellyse Perry.
Tomorrow’s match starts at 9.30am at Allan Border Field with admission free.
The WNCL action can be followed online at cricket.com.au and via the CricketLive app.
Women’s National Cricket League
Queensland Fire v Victoria
Allan Border Field
Tomorrow, 9.30am start
Georgia Redmayne (c)
Charli Knott (v-c)
Bonnie Berry
Lucy Bourke
Sianna Ginger
Nicola Hancock
Grace Harris
Jess Jonassen
Annie O'Neil
Grace Parsons
Ruby Strange
Lauren Winfield-Hill
Mikayla Wrigley