Australia captain Meg Lanning says her champions team are hungrier than ever as they prepare to travel to South Africa and defend their title at the Women’s T20 World Championship.
In her third match against T20 Pakistan in Canberra on Sunday afternoon, the ball didn’t get bowled and it rained, giving Australia one last chance to fine-tune before leaving home soil. I couldn’t.
Manuka A persistent drizzle at his oval kept the player dead out on the field for his rubber encounters, allowing the hosts to win his series 2-0 in his three games .
The players will travel to Sydney for Monday night’s Australian Cricket Awards before flying to South Africa on Tuesday for warm-up matches against India (6 February) and Ireland (8 February). I’m here.
Australia will enter the tournament as a favourite, but Lanning said she will face many teams in her bid to win.
“We’re very aware there’s a lot of good teams out there who are chasing the same amount of success; we certainly aren’t complacent in any way,” she said. “We have high expectations on ourselves…we’re a very driven, very competitive group so that naturally lends itself to big tournaments like this where you need to be at your best.”
The skipper said Australia had not been planning to use Sunday’s clash to give depth players a chance heading into the showpiece tournament, although nine bowlers were used in Friday’s second game of the series to reduce the workload on the frontline quicks.
Australia cruised to a pair of eight-wicket wins in the first two games against Pakistan in Sydney and Hobart, with a five-wicket haul from Megan Schutt and an unbeaten half-century from Ellyse Perry the standout performances.
Star wicketkeeper-batter Alyssa Healy did not play in the series after a calf injury from the recent tour of India, but will be on the plane to South Africa and is a possibility to feature in the warm-up games.
“She’s striking well, it’s all going to plan…I assume if she can, she’ll play some of those practice games over there,” Lanning said. “She is a very interesting batsman who controls the game and presses opponents from the first ball, which is an important part of T20 cricket.
“The other thing is her experience in big games. She’s played really well under pressure before, which not all teams have.”
Australia’s World Cup opener will be against New Zealand on 12 February at Pearl.