Beth Mooney’s second Player-of-the-Match award in a T20 World Cup final makes her the first woman to win it twice, a feat only West Indies great Marlon Samuels had previously managed in the men’s game. Her 64 off 49 in the final chase at Lord’s also drew her level with Nat Sciver-Brunt’s tournament record for most half-centuries, and stretched her own run of fifties in finals to three straight editions, a mark nobody else has reached in either the men’s or women’s tournament.
A Historic Final at Lord’s
Australia beat England by seven wickets at Lord’s on 5 July, chasing 151 down in 17.1 overs to finish on 153 for 3. Mooney’s contribution was 64 off 49 balls including 10 boundaries, earning her the Player of the Match award in the final for the second time in her career.
She also finished as Player of the Tournament, her second such honour after 2020, having scored 238 runs across seven matches at an average of 47.60 and a strike rate of 142.51, the second-highest aggregate of the tournament behind Wyatt-Hodge’s 302. It was Mooney’s sixth Women’s T20 World Cup appearance since her debut in 2016, and her fourth title. That victory extended Australia’s unbeaten run in global white-ball finals.
Beth Mooney T20 World Cup 2026 Record
Mooney is now the first woman, and the first player in the history of the Women’s tournament, to win Player of the Match in two separate T20 World Cup finals, having also taken the award in 2023 with an unbeaten 74. She did not win it in 2020 despite an unbeaten 78, though she was named Player of the Tournament that year instead.
Her 64 at Lord’s also completed a run of three consecutive fifties across finals, 78 not out in 2020, 74 not out in 2023 and 64 in 2026, a sequence no other batter has managed in a men’s or women’s T20 World Cup final. The innings pulled her level with Sciver-Brunt on nine half-centuries in the tournament’s history, a record Sciver-Brunt had set only in the semi-final days earlier while Mooney sat one behind on eight. No other Australian batter has matched that finals sequence before.
Setting the Story Straight on Samuels
Mooney’s achievement does not stand entirely alone. Marlon Samuels won Player of the Match in a men’s T20 World Cup final twice before her, in 2012 and 2016, and any claim to a first outright needs that context attached. That earlier double had gone largely unmentioned in recent coverage.
| Player | T20 WC Final | Score | Result |
| Beth Mooney | 2020 (MCG) | 78* (54) | AUS beat IND by 85 runs |
| Beth Mooney | 2023 (Cape Town) | 74* (53) | AUS beat SA by 19 runs |
| Beth Mooney | 2026 (Lord’s) | 64 (49) | AUS beat ENG by 7 wkts |
| Marlon Samuels | 2012 (Sri Lanka) | 78* (56) | WI beat SL by 36 runs |
| Marlon Samuels | 2016 (England) | 85* (66) | WI beat ENG, last over |
Samuels struck 78 not out off 56 balls in 2012 as West Indies beat Sri Lanka by 36 runs, then followed it with 85 not out off 66 in 2016, the highest individual score in a T20 World Cup final at the time and later matched by Kane Williamson, as West Indies won a last-over thriller against England. His double came first. Mooney’s 2026 award places the two of them level, rather than handing her a record that stood alone.
Her Legacy Among the Game’s Greats
Beyond the finals themselves, Mooney’s Women’s T20 World Cup career now reads 990 runs from 35 matches and 32 innings, at an average of 43.04 and a strike rate of 121.77, with nine half-centuries across six editions. Her wider T20 international career stands at 125 matches, 3,783 runs at 41.57, 31 fifties and two centuries. Few players in the format have built a résumé this deep.
At Lord’s, she was dismissed for the first time in the format at that ground since 2018, a small footnote against the scale of what she has built there and elsewhere. Beth Mooney T20 World Cup 2026 record now places her among the format’s most decorated players regardless of gender, a status built one final innings at a time rather than any single afternoon at Lord’s.