The Australian performance in Christchurch was one of superlatives. 

Alyssa Healy’s towering innings of 170 was the highest individual score in any men's or women's World Cup final.

Australia’s total of 356 for 5 was also a tournament record for the women’s competition.

World champions! ? Congratulations to our Australian Women's Cricket Team on a seventh ODI World Cup title.

A huge shoutout to all teams for an outstanding tournament played in great spirit ? https://t.co/EUANFwh5FU

— Cricket Australia (@CricketAus) April 3, 2022

In July, Australia begin their campaign for Commonwealth Games gold against India, in a tournament to be played in the T20 format, but they seem equally adept regardless of the type of cricket to be played.

Earlier this year, in the multi format women’s "Ashes" series, they beat England convincingly by nine wickets in the one T20 match that survived the bad weather.

The Commonwealth Games competition will be held at Edgbaston, the ground where the inaugural Women’s Cricket World Cup was decided in 1973.

Seven teams took part in a round robin league format.

It had been arranged that the final match of a round robin series was to be at Edgbaston, the biggest ground used during the tournament.

In the belief that these would probably be the strongest in the competition, organisers had scheduled this as a meeting between England and Australia.

The inspiration for the whole World Cup enterprise had come two years earlier from business tycoon Jack Hayward, who donated a trophy and offered financial support.

Hayward was based in the Bahamas, where he had made his fortune.

He was a long-term supporter of women’s cricket and had previously sponsored tours of the Caribbean.

In November 1971, when the Women’s Cricket Association (WCA) held their annual general meeting in London, they agreed that a tournament should go ahead in the Northern hemisphere summer of 1973.

At the time, there was no such official event in the men’s game.

Officials agreed it was "an opportunity which could, if we only had the courage to accept the challenge, help us to put the minority sport of Women's Cricket Association on the map".

A request was made for a match of to be played at Lord’s Cricket Ground in London, an arena generally regarded as "the home of cricket", but this was turned down by the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC).

"We are sure they are sympathetic to us but the programmes are planned so far in advance," England captain Rachael Heyhoe Flint said. 

"It would have been wonderful to have played one of this summer’s matches there." 

Heyhoe-Flint had an additional responsibility of her day job as a journalist and public relations officer, which she put to good use in promoting the tournament.

Players were permitted to practise in the nets at the Nursery End at Lord’s, but it would be another three years before any women’s team would play on the hallowed ground and 25 years before any woman was permitted to become an MCC member.

In the last few months, the ban on Russian sports teams in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine has posed a problem for administrators as a number of nations have made it very clear they are unwilling to face Russian athletes on the sporting field.

This was also the case in 1973, except that the team no one wanted to play came from South Africa.

At the time, the Pretoria Government operated Apartheid, a discriminatory policy which called for segregation on the basis of skin colour.

"Sensitive to current world opinion and in no position to cope with the possible consequences of flouting that opinion, the W.C.A. had avoided a direct invitation to the South Africa and Rhodesia Women's Cricket Association to take part in the competition," explained World Cup organisers in their official report.

In 1970, there had been widespread demonstrations by Anti-Apartheid groups against a proposed tour by the South African men's team to England.

Ultimately, the British Government stepped in to block the tour which was replaced by a series of five matches between England and a Rest of the World team.

South Africa's scheduled visit to Australia in 1971 was also called off after protests.

Once again, a series against the Rest of the World was inserted into the schedule at short notice.

On both occasions, the Rest of the World side was captained by West Indian Garfield Sobers, at the time the greatest all-rounder in the sport. 

Sobers led powerful line-ups which included South African stars invited on an individual basis.

For 1973, organisers of the women’s world cup adopted the same policy employed  for the men's matches and invited individual South African players to participate in an International XI which had been included in the World Cup competition.

"At the last minute, too late to take any other course of action, the W.C.A. was forced to withdraw these personal invitations in order to ensure the participation of other countries in the competition," the official report recorded.

It fell to Sir Roger Bannister, chairman of the Sports Council, to declare the competition open.

The official tournament brochure pointed out that "readers who are making their first acquaintance with women's cricket may be in interested to know that the only concession made to the game by the fair sex (sic), is in the use of a slightly smaller ball, to allow for the difference in the average size of a woman's hand as compared with a man's".

The standard which has been adopted is five ounces.

In 1973, the current politically correct terminology was not yet in use by reporters.

"To a batsman and a batswoman alike, a cricket ball is hard, and this is where the women make the men look like a bunch of softies," Jeff Farmer, writing in the Daily Mail, concluded.

"The men used thigh pads and chest pads, the women got by with a short skirt and a suntan," Farmer told his readers.

After days of unbroken sunshine, the tournament started with rain, as the capricious British "summer" lived up to its reputation. 

As the tournament progressed, a "social programme" was arranged for each team.

For the Australians, this included a visit to Longleat Safari Park, where there was a "confrontation with an inquisitive rhino", upon which the official report sadly did not elaborate.

This mysterious episode notwithstanding, Australia led the table by one point as the tournament reached its final match.

"Cynics who thought women's cricket would fail to attract any interest were proved wrong and many experts were surprised by the high standard of play," the Australian Associated Press said.

"With the exception of fast bowling, which does not exist in the true sense, the women displayed skills which would not have been out of place in male strongholds." 

As the competition reached its conclusion, the forecast made by organisers that England and Australia would decide the trophy had proved correct.

Edgbaston had been a test match ground since 1902 and a women’s test was first played there in 1963.

This was a match in which England captain Heyhoe Flint and her Australian counterpart Miriam Knee had both taken part but it ended in a draw.

The final match of the 1973 tournament was far and away the highest profile women’s match there had been.

Even so, the total coverage was the tiniest fraction of that seen at the 2022 World Cup, or that to be expected during the Commonwealth Games.

It was the only match of the tournament to receive substantial television coverage, and even that was not transmitted until the following day.

It was also a royal occasion for Princess Anne, who flew into Birmingham by helicopter to present the trophy, but other engagements in the city prevented her witnessing the England innings.

As the tournament’s leading run scorer Enid Bakewell struck 118 to guide England to a commanding total of 279 for three, Her Royal Highness was declaring open the Birmingham gold and silver exhibition commemorating the bicentenary of the Birmingham Assay office.

She then dined with Birmingham Mayor Marjorie Brown but arrived at Edgbaston in time to see England restrict Australia to 187 for 9, to leave them 92 runs short.

In 1973, matches were played over 60 overs a side, but those at the Commonwealth Games this summer will be completed in a quarter of the time.

The 2022 Commonwealth Games draw has kept England and Australia apart in the qualifying groups so the earliest the two great rivals can meet is at the semi-final stage.