Women’s Cricket is going to make its debut at the Commonwealth Games to be held in Birmingham 2022, and World No 1 T20I side Australia are aiming nothing less than gold. Australian captain Meg Lanning was quoted saying to reporters on Thursday that “We are going over there to win gold, there’s no doubt about that.”
The women’s T20 cricket event is going to be held from July 29 to Aug 7 at the Edgbaston Cricket Ground, where 8 teams are put into two groups of 4 each, who play each other once in the group stage, with the top 2 sides from both pools advancing to the semi-finals.
Australia is placed in Group A alongside India, Pakistan, and Barbados. Australia will take on India in the opening fixture on July 29.
“We go out there to win every game that we can and the first Commonwealth Games medal up for grabs in women’s cricket is certainly something we’re striving for,” Lanning added.
Before locking horns with India on July 29, Lanning’s troops head to Ireland for a tri-series fixture, where they play Ireland and Pakistan twice.
Lanning feels that those matches will serve as the perfect dress-rehearsal for the mega event later in the month. “Being part of that bigger Australian team which is something we really want to embrace,” she said.
Skipper Lanning has her eyes on the Gold🥇!#CricketTwitter @birminghamcg22 pic.twitter.com/19g8Bzv2Wz
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) July 8, 2022
Lanning said that the team are also looking to become the reckoning force that they are in ODIs in T20 cricket as well.
She said, “It’s something we have spoken about as a group as a whole and also within our skill groups as well, in terms of how do we get that little bit better and push the boundaries that little bit more than we have in the past. We have got a couple of things we have been working on both as a team and individually as well.”
The skipper believes that they’ll be able to do so under new leadership in their change room as assistant coach Shelley Nitschke has taken over interim duties from former head coach Matthew Mott who made his way to take over England’s white-ball men’s side.
“It is going to look and feel slightly different with Shell in charge as opposed to Motty, but both similar messaging in terms of how we want to play the game, take the game on, we certainly want to go out there and be aggressive and play with a lot of freedom.”
Australia Squad for the Ireland Tri-Series and Commonwealth Games 2022
Meg Lanning (c), Rachael Haynes (vc), Darcie Brown, Nicola Carey, Ashleigh Gardner, Grace Harris, Alyssa Healy, Jess Jonassen, Alana King, Tahlia McGrath, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Amanda-Jade Wellington
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