Australia all-rounder Ellyse Perry believes batting second gave her team a big advantage as they completed a successful run chase against India in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup on Sunday (June 28).
Perry scored her second straight half-century and won another Player of the Match award after playing an excellent innings of 56 at Lord’s. Her knock helped Australia beat India by six wickets, finish the group stage unbeaten and book a place in the semi-finals. The win also ended India’s hopes of reaching the knockout stage.
The experienced 35-year-old shared a 100-run partnership with fellow all-rounder Ash Gardner, who remained unbeaten on 53. The pair scored at more than 10 runs an over as Australia chased down India’s total of 170/4 with six balls to spare. The victory also set up a semi-final clash against the 2016 champions, West Indies.
Perry and Gardner made the chase look comfortable in front of a packed crowd at the Home of Cricket. India’s bowling attack badly missed injured spinner Shreyanka Patil, while Australia stayed on course to win a record seventh Women’s T20 World Cup title.
After the match, Perry said it helped that Australia were able to watch India bat first. She said seeing how the pitch behaved gave them a better idea of how to plan their chase. Perry also revealed that she and Gardner wanted to score quickly at the start of every over to keep the required run rate under control.
“It was a really enjoyable partnership with Ash,” Perry said after the six-wicket victory at Lord’s. “I think probably having the opportunity to watch the way the first innings played out and to see that, it’s sort of possible to accelerate through the middle and back end there.
“The way that Ash came out and her approach to her innings was really important in the context of the game and I thought she shifted the momentum beautifully.
“We spoke a lot about targeting the first couple of balls of the over, and I think she did that incredibly well, and it just gave us some momentum in the chase. And I think once you get that, on a good ground you sort of put yourself in a good position. So, it was lots of fun.”
Australia will now focus on their semi-final against West Indies at The Oval on Tuesday, June 30. The Caribbean side reached the last four after finishing just ahead of Sri Lanka on net run rate.
The two teams have shared some memorable moments in Women’s T20 World Cup history. West Indies famously beat Australia in the final of the 2016 tournament, but Perry believes that result has little meaning now because so much has changed over the last 10 years.
“I mean, what’s that, 10 years ago?,” Perry noted. “The game has changed so much in that period of time. And I just think like you cannot pull things, can’t even pull things from last match because it’s crazy how sport works as everything’s different the next day so it doesn’t really matter and it’s very much a clean slate.
“We’ve played each other quite a lot in the last couple of months. We actually had a tour to the West Indies earlier this year. We’ve played each other in a warm-up match, so we’re sort of quite familiar with each other at the moment.
“And yeah, like as I said, in World Cups, particularly semi-finals, like there’s absolutely no favourites, there’s no foregone conclusions with results. And they’ve got, as you’ve highlighted, some tremendously talented and dangerous players with a lot of experience. So it’ll be a great challenge for us. It’s a quick turnaround too at a different venue, so I think we’re really looking forward to it.”
Australia have looked one of the strongest teams throughout the tournament, winning all of their group matches with confident performances. However, Perry knows that semi-finals are always different because every team is only one win away from the final.
Even though Australia have beaten West Indies several times in recent months, Perry believes that past results will not matter once the players step onto the field. She expects a tough contest against an experienced West Indies side and knows Australia will need another strong all-round performance if they want to reach yet another Women’s T20 World Cup final.
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