Before Beth Mooney leads the winning charge, Megan Schutt shines in a historic match

After Marizanne Kapp scored fifty runs but had to leave the field due to injury, Australia defeated South Africa 105 (Kapp 50*, King 3-19) by eight wickets, finishing at 106 for 2.

In the first ODI of the series, Australian quick Megan Schutt celebrated her milestone match with a miserly spell in an eight-wicket thumping of South Africa.

At Adelaide Oval, Schutt claimed 1-1 from five straight overs as the tourists were bowled out for 105. With Beth Mooney top-scoring with an undefeated 52, Australia forcefully won game one of the three-match ODI series and took a 6-2 lead in the multi-format match. Australia chased the runs in 19 overs.

Taking the new ball, Schutt—the sixth Australian to play in 200 international matches—claimed a wicket on her ninth delivery, and the only run she gave up was an inside edge.

Mooney remarked, "It's a pretty unbelievable spell." In international cricket, to bowl five overs and only be hit for one run against genuinely good opposition—that probably just goes to show how good a bowler Shooter has been over a long career. I would venture to say that this is perhaps the best bowling she has done in a long time throughout her career."

With a score of 50, Marizanne Kapp led the field, but an injury forced her to retire. The throw struck Kapp on her left elbow as she finished a second run to reach her half-century, but further scans revealed no fractures.

A spokesperson for South Africa stated, "Scans have revealed it is a soft tissue injury on the upper left arm."

Laura Wolvaardt, the captain of South Africa, lost her cherished scalp to Schutt on her 261st international wicket. She plays with Schutt's team, the Adelaide Strikers, who are the current WBBL champions. At 4 runs, Wolvaardt gave her friend her wicket by cutting a short, wide delivery to point, where Georgia Wareham made an easy catch.

After eight overs, South Africa quickly fell to 9 for 3, and they never got back up. Despite the chaos, Kapp maintained her composure with a brilliant knock, making eight fours out of her 58 balls before the real bad luck struck.

The all-rounder took a blow to the elbow just as she finished her 50th run without incident. When Kapp was declared out of the game, the tourists lost their final four wickets for eleven runs.

Phoebe Litchfield and Alyssa Healy, Australia's openers, were out of the game after just nine overs in the run chase. However, veteran Mooney, who hit nine fours in her 34-ball inning, and Perry easily won after that.

"We always talk about finishing games well and I find those smaller run chases a little bit tricky," Mooney stated. "If you lose a few wickets early it can send a bit of a ripple effect through the batting order."The most important thing is to ensure that we win those games handily and don't assign too much work to the middle or lower-order players."

On Wednesday and Saturday at North Sydney Oval, the three-game ODI series continues.