Australian all-format skipper, Meg Lanning days back was granted an indefinite break by Cricket Australia (CA) to have time away from the game citing personal reasons. The decision from Meg Lanning had come days after adding a feather more to her decorated crown of wins at global tournaments with the latest being the Gold at the Commonwealth Games.
Meg Lanning in her statement said, “After a busy couple of years, I’ve made the decision to take a step back to enable me to spend time focusing on myself. I’m grateful for the support of CA and my teammates and ask that my privacy is respected during this time.”
With Meg Lanning set to miss cricket action, Australian vice-captain, Rachael Haynes has said she is ready and willing to now captain the Australian side in regular skipper, Meg Lannings’ absence. 35-year-old, Meg Lanning said, “I’ve stepped into that role before when Meg’s been injured and I’m current vice-captain so whoever the head coach is and whoever the national selectors think is the best person to do it (is up to them).
“I’m definitely open to doing it myself, or if there’s another person who they think is better suited, then they’d have my full support as well.
“So that’s not my decision. It’s a few people who have to mark that off and I’m happy to do it moving forward, but that’s not in my hands.”
Rachael Haynes has been around the Australian team for over 13 years and has captained Australia in 14 matches across the three formats with the highlight being her leading the Australian side to an Ashes win in the 2017 Test match while Meg Lanning missed out due to shoulder surgery.
Rachael Haynes recently re-signed with the Sydney Thunder in the Women’s Big Bash League (WBBL) and her record in the Bash as a captain too has been a good one where she’d lead the side to their 2nd title win.
Rachael Haynes has been batting in the middle order for Australia in the T20I format and the highest score she’s got to off late is 20. On her form, the following is what Rachael Haynes had to say, “I’m hitting the ball really well, I’ve just been finding a way of getting out. But that’s this format of the game, it’s pretty unforgiving given that you’ve got to keep your foot on the accelerator at different times.
“We’ve got an opportunity over here (so I’m) looking forward to spending a little bit more time in the middle for the Welsh Fire and then hopefully I can just roll on heading into the Australian summer.”
After the recent resignation of Matthew Mott from the team’s role as head coach, for Australia now to be without their longtime skipper and one of Australia’s best batters in the XI is surely a huge blow for the side. Interim head coach, Shelley Nitschke has had a good start to her coaching stint having just guided the team to win Gold at the Commonwealth Games.
On the above, Rachael Haynes said, “Our national team has a pretty significant break, there’s plenty of time to have those (leadership) conversations once we get back (to Australia).
“A new head coach will get appointed as well so I think there’s a few things to go through and I guess tick off before those conversations happen.”
Source: The Sportsrush
