DELIVERING WORLD-CLASS EVENTS // ICC WOMEN’S WORLD T20 2018
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AUSTRALIA RECLAIM THE CROWN
Meg Lanning’s team showed their quality to lift the ICC Women’s World T20 and now have their eyes on the prize back home next year
With ambitious plans to make the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2020* the most spectacular and successful event so far, Australia chose a timely moment to reassert their number one status in the international women’s game by winning the trophy for the fourth time in the Caribbean.
It means Australia will go into the 2020 tournament not only as hosts but as defending champions after defeating England by a comfortable eight-wicket margin in the final at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua.
In the conclusion of the first stand-alone ICC Women’s World T20*, more than 9,000 were in the stadium to see England, who had beaten Australia on the way to winning the 50-over ICC Women’s World Cup on home soil in 2017, make a flying start. They put 12 on the board in the first over after winning the toss and opting to bat first, but then subsided to a paltry 105 all out.
Danni Wyatt, who had hit a four and a six in that opening over, went on to make 43 from 37 balls but apart from captain Heather Knight (25 off 28), no other batter reached double figures.
England had hoped that their third meeting with Australia in the final of the competition would prove to be the lucky one after cruising to an eight-wicket victory over India in the semi-finals.
Yet Australia, who had avenged their 2016 final defeat to the Windies with a comprehensive 71-run win in the semi-final, were comfortable winners.
They were not at their best in the field – Wyatt was dropped three times – but Elyse Villani held on to a skyer to limit the dangerous Tammy Beaumont to four runs and a brilliant direct hit from mid-on from Georgia Wareham ran out England’s leading tournament run-getter Amy Jones for the same score. These were decisive moments.
Wareham, just 19, also took two wickets in two balls with her leg spin as the younger Australians rose to the occasion. Ashleigh Gardner, the 21-year-old off-spinner, claimed the scalps of both Wyatt and Knight in her three for 22 before hammering three sixes in an unbeaten 33. Not surprisingly, she was named Player of the Match.
It was a first major trophy since 2014 for Australia’s women and skipper Meg Lanning, who was out of action for seven months having had shoulder surgery following her side’s 2017 50-over semi- final loss to India, gave free rein to her emotions after taking the tournament-winning single with the first ball of the 16th over, wrapping herself around Gardner in a mid-pitch embrace.
“It’s definitely the most satisfying win I’ve been involved in, especially after the last couple of years,” Lanning said afterwards. “The last couple of World Cup exits for us hurt our team a lot.
“To have those young players step up in such a big final just shows how good they can be and really how calm and composed they are under pressure.”
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