Having been a part of every final but one in the tournament’s history (winning the trophy four times), Meg Lanning’s Australia go into their home T20 World Cup this week as overwhelming favourites as they look to cement their superiority in women’s cricket.
But standing in front of them in the curtain-raiser in Sydney on Friday is an Indian side that has proved to be a thorn in their flesh in the last couple of ICC events. Australia have lost to India in their last two World Cup meetings (in ODIs in 2017 and at the World T20 in 2018) and know that, on their day, Harmanpreet Kaur and Co can go toe-to-toe with the best in the world.
Lanning’s defending champions, and four-time winners, were rarely tested through the second half of 2019 when they whitewashed an injury-ravaged West Indies and a developing Sri Lanka team in the short format.
Meet India’s 15-member squad led by Harmanpreet Kaur
Australia favourites
Giving a glimmer of hope to their rivals, they surprisingly slumped to defeat against major rivals India and England this month, before rallying to win the warm-up tri-series.
“To be put under pressure like this heading into a World Cup is extremely good preparation,” Lanning said.
Despite the recent losses, Australia are widely expected to contest the March 8 final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where organisers are hoping to draw a world-record attendance for a women’s sporting fixture.
T20 World Cup: Here’s all you need to know
The cavernous MCG holds 100,000 fans, while the record stands at 90,185 for the 1999 football World Cup final when the United States beat China on penalties in Pasadena, California.
It is hard to look past Australia — who boast of the best administrative support in the women’s game — as one of the potential finalists.
Along with Lanning, Australia boasts wicketkeeper-batswoman Alyssa Healy, superstar all-rounder Ellyse Perry and bowling sensation Jess Jonassen, all among the world’s best.
They have been dominant since the World Cup was introduced 11 years ago, winning four of the six editions so far and crushing England by eight wickets in the 2018 final in the West Indies.
The only other teams to lift the trophy were England on home soil in 2009 and the West Indies in 2016.
Lanning’s side open the 10-team tournament on Friday in Sydney against an Indian side boasting of teen batting sensation Shafali Verma.
“We play some very different teams in this World Cup who have very different styles of play, so for us it’ll purely come down to what we feel the best combination is,” Lanning said on how the side might line up. “But I’m extremely confident anyone we put out on the park will do well.”
‘Our strength is spin’
Australia and India are 2-2 across their last four meetings and Indian skipper Kaur said her side had improved markedly since the last World Cup, when they lost to England in the semi-finals.
“If I look back two years, India’s 50-over side was doing well and our T20 was struggling. But in the past two years, we have transformed as a T20 team and are very positive going to Australia,” she wrote in a column. “All of the teams have strengths – but so do we. Our strength is spin.”
Young, inconsistent, but Harmanpreet Kaur’s India have potential to go the distance
Key stats
• This will be the fourth meeting between Australia and India at an ICC Women’s T20 World Cup; although they’ve lost two of those encounters, India won the most recent fixture involving these two sides (it was Australia’s sole defeat at ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2018).
• Australia and India met three times in a T20 Tri-Nations series earlier this month, a tournament that culminated in an 11-run victory for Australia; each side picked up a win apiece against each other in the series before that encounter.
• Australia are the only side to win multiple ICC Women’s World T20 World Cup campaigns (four); they have reached the final in each of the last five tournaments, a run stretching between 2010 and 2018.
• Smriti Mandhana (India) heads into this contest having recorded scores of 50+ in four of her last six T20I knocks versus Australia, including a Player-of-the-Match performance when these sides last met in this competition (83 off 55 balls in 2018).
• Australia’s Megan Schutt took more wickets at ‘the death’ (overs 17-20) than any other bowler at ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2018 (six); she recorded the joint-most dot balls in that period of games in the process (16 – level with Bangladesh’s Salma Khatun).
The match starts at 1.30 pm IST
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