Cricket: Australia's women beat England to win World Cup

Australia have won by 71 runs to take the Cricket World Cup trophy in New Zealand.

Australia's Alyssa Healy powered Australia to victory over England, with an amazing score of 356-5.

The game was played in the Hagley Oval stadium in Christchurch, New Zealand - finishing on Sunday morning UK time.

England had been hoping for back-to-back titles after winning the 2017 World Cup at home.

The England team chose to field first, but in perfect batting conditions Australia left them with far too much work to do and England lost too many wickets to be able to catch up.

Australia were crowned world champions for the seventh time, having managed nine wins from nine matches.

It was a disappointing end to the tournament for England, who had done well to turn things around to reach the final after losing their first three games of the tournament.

At that point they were one wicket from a loss against New Zealand which would have knocked them out of the competition completely, but they managed to stage a comeback with five straight wins.

Australia captain Meg Lanning told the BBC: "This tournament has been a long time coming - it has been in the back of our minds and there are no doubts we wanted this trophy in our cabinet.

"It has been an amazing effort over a number of years and to finish it off like this is amazing."

England's Heather Knight, Sophie Ecclestone and Freya Davies were clearly disappointed after the result

England captain Heather Knight said: "You'll have to ask me if I'll look back fondly on this tournament in a couple of months I think. Potentially.

"To not be able to go one more and take home the trophy is gutting and will take some time for the disappointment to settle in."