The Australian left-hander was imperious and classy throughout, finding the gaps at will and demonstrating the kind of form that has earned her the title of No.1 batter in Women’s T20I cricket.

She was to finish up stuck on 99, agonisingly short of the women’s competition’s second-ever hundred, when Sophie Ecclestone was run out seeking an improbable two from the final ball of the innings.

Fortunately for Mooney, despite missing out on a personal landmark, her fine innings was to come in a winning cause despite fellow Aussie Phoebe Litchfield causing a few butterflies with an impressive innings in riposte.

Litchfield made 45 from 29 but when she fell, bowled by a nicely executed slower ball by compatriot Kim Garth, the team in purple ran out of steam in pursuit of a big chase.

Their victory did prevent Superchargers, their cross-Pennines rivals, from ascending to first place and sees the top of the table in the women’s competition further congested going into the final week.

Meerkat Match Hero Mooney said: “It was a lot of fun. I thought Laura Wolvaardt and I set the game up nicely at the top and obviously Kathyrn Bryce finished it beautifully getting five-fer there. A pretty good day out for the Originals.

“A little bit [of regret at not reaching 100]. But if you’d told me this morning I would have scored that many runs I would have taken it, and got the team in a winning position as well, which is most important.

“I did the best I could and didn’t quite get over the line for that milestone but for me it’s about trying to get the team into a winning position and I thought 150 was probably about par.

“We saw some of the batters in the Superchargers took the game to the sword a bit and could have taken it away from us pretty quickly, but I thought we were really composed and bowled beautifully.”