Meg Lanning made her last professional outing in the finals of the inaugural season of the Women’s Premier League in March. After that, Meg missed the historic Ashes series and now, Meg is also set to miss the home series against West Indies, as the selectors felt the need for her to play a few games in the domestic circuit before returning back for the Australian side.
Lanning featured for Victoria in the Women’s National Cricket League (WNCL) on 26th September playing against Western Australia. Batting first, Meg was called upon by her team pretty early in the match, as they lost their first in the 4th over itself, with the score being just 5 runs.
Victoria’s opener Sophie Reid played some good free-flowing shots, as she and Meg shared a partnership of 76 runs. Meg was at her usual best as she kept on piling runs. After getting the lifeline on her ball, Meg started putting more misery on Western Australia’s head as she played some delightful shots.
Meg raced to a half-century from 47 balls, a knock which included 6 fours and a six. Meg played shots to all the sides of the ground, as her 6 fours comprised a shot through the covers, a shot over the long-off, added by a couple of sweeps along with a few late cuts. Unfortunately, the latter was the way of dismissal for her as she tried to cut the ball late on the bowling of Zoe Britcliffe eventually leading to the ball taking an inside edge and crashing her stumps.
Fifty in her comeback match for Meg Lanning ❤️
Nature is healing!#CricketTwitter pic.twitter.com/tFATJDftx2
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) September 26, 2023
Victoria lost their way once Meg was out, as they got bowled out for just 176. Wickets of Victorian batters fell in a hurry as their big guns apart from Meg couldn’t quite ignite the fire. Australian regular Ellyse Perry, who returned from nursing a knee injury got dismissed cheaply for just 8 runs. Georgia Wareham and Kim Garth didn’t quite trouble the scorers as they got dismissed on 1 and 0 respectively. Annabel Sutherland was dismissed for just 1 run.
In the second innings, Victoria started on a bright note as they dismissed the dangerous batter Beth Mooney on the second ball of the innings. Despite this, Western Australia’s captain Chloe Piparo started taking on the bowlers. It seemed like she was batting on a completely different pitch than the Victorian batters. Chloe Piparo scored 98* runs as they chased the target in just 35 overs.
The comeback of Meg Lanning was still the talking point, as it could possibly mean that Lanning could be back for international duties as early as the India tour for the Australian players.
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