From broken jaw to Ashes Test in 10 days: Inside Beth Mooney's miraculous recovery

Less than two weeks later she crafted a brilliant second-innings 63 at Manuka Oval before taking a diving catch in the deep to dismiss Sophia Dunkley, who had been on track to deliver England a miracle Test win.

Mooney is as tough as she is humble.

She fobs off her recent jaw surgery and almost immediate comeback as simply a requirement of her role in representing Australia, which she will do again on Thursday in Canberra during the first of three Ashes-deciding one-day matches.

Next month Mooney is set to play a key role in New Zealand as Australia looks to win the one-day World Cup crown for the first time since 2013.

By then Mooney's jaw would have just about healed, and her diet should be back to normal.

MORE CANBERRA SPORT

"The initial few days post surgery was pretty tough," Mooney told The Canberra Times.

"I had a Nutribullet in my room. I was having a lot of yoghurts and protein smoothies, and soups, just trying to get enough nutrients in.

"[Team doctor] Pip [Inge] even went to the lengths of putting raw eggs in my smoothies which she told me about after the Test match.

"I'm allowed to have softer foods now like mashed potato and well-cooked pasta. It's been a nice change from the soups and the thickshakes, although I might just keep having the thickshakes because I don't mind any excuse to have something like that."

It all stemmed from an innocuous training incident in Adelaide, leading up to three scheduled T20 matches to open this year's Ashes series.

Coach Matthew Mott was slinging some balls to Mooney, and one rogue delivery bounced up underneath her grill slamming into the side of her head.

"Straight away it was pretty painful, and there was a fair bit of blood building up in my mouth - it wasn't pretty at the very start," Mooney said.

"Meg said she noticed a bit of a gap between my bottom teeth that's not normally there so she knew it wasn't great but she didn't say anything to me.

"When I first got hit and a bit of blood was pissing out everywhere I was thinking 'They're not going to be able to fix this very quickly', it's just going to be one of those things that I can't play with because they're going to be worried about me getting hit.

"[Physio] Kate [Beerworth] is from Adelaide so she's got a lot of contacts down there, she got me in to get a scan straight away and to see a dentist to make sure my teeth were all in the right place.

You hear a couple of breaks in your jaw and you think the worst, but Pip was pretty positive that once they'd done the surgery, the recovery would be just coming back from the anesthetic and not the actual jaw injury itself."

Inge's initial assessment was accurate, despite an X Ray that looked like something out of a horror film.

The cricket ball cracked the jaw where it struck, but the pressure of the impact caused her chin to break simultaneously.

"Your jaw bone is like a pretzel, when you break a pretzel in half it breaks in two spots because of the pressure," Mooney said.

"I think was actually quite lucky, in some cases it breaks on the opposite side of your jaw as well, and I think that creates a few more problems."

The next day Mooney went in for a 90-minute surgery. A cracked wisdom tooth was removed initially, before plates and screws were inserted at the side of her jaw, and into her chin to allow the bone to repair.

Two days later she attended the first half of the Ashes-opening T20, but returned to her room early through exhaustion and missed Australia's stellar run chase.

A day later Mooney was back in the nets, hitting tennis balls before progressing to cricket balls. When the first short delivery came her way, she didn't flinch.

"I remember hitting for about half an hour or 40 minutes and being out of breath and thinking 'How am I going to get through a Test match'," Mooney said.

"It progressively got a lot easier to be out there and exerting myself physically. Once I got through that weekend and then down to Canberra and almost back to normal training by then, it was totally fine apart from a little bit of discomfort with the wires and stitches all in my mouth.

"As an athlete your natural instincts take over so from my point of view there wasn't any element of fear about facing the short ball.

"The way I got hit in the nets was probably my own fault, I just got myself into an awkward position and the ball just came up under my grill which doesn't normally happen from the height of the bowlers in the women's game. There was never an element of 'Shit, what am I going to do if someone bowls short at me'. Motty accidentally threw a couple of short ones at me in the net and it was completely fine.

"There was probably a lot more fear from everyone else than there was from me. They saw me get hit and go down and start spitting out blood, it was probably a little bit more traumatic for everyone else."