Antigua, Nov 24: Riding on the support of fans in the Caribbean, the ICC Women’s World T20 2018 is all set for a grand finale between Australia and England at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua on Sunday.
The two sides will meet in the summit showdown of the ICC Women’s World T20 for the third time. While Australia are gunning for a record fourth title, a victory for England would see them hold both T20I and ODI world titles at the same time, a feat which they previously achieved in 2009.
Australia will look for a strong start from wicket-keeper Alyssa Healy, who has amassed a total of 203 runs in the tournament and needs another 55 runs to surpass her captain Meg Lanning’s record for the most runs in a single edition of the prestigious tournament. With the ball, Ellyse Perry has proven effective even on slow surfaces and she is now on verge to become only the second woman to take 100 T20I wickets.
England will be happy that their batters had a good hit against India, but their bowlers have really punched above their weight. In particular, left-arm spinner Kirstie Gordon has been impressive. Gordon is the joint second-highest wicket-taker in the tournament with eight scalps, and has shown match-winning credentials in just her debut tournament.
Ahead of the summit clash, Australian skipper Meg Lanning said, “I thought we played well (in the semi-final). But at the same time, we were very, very clear that we had one more step to go. We’ve given ourselves the chance, I guess, but we need to make sure we get the job done tomorrow night.”
“I didn’t feel great batting out there in the middle last night, sort of scratching around a little bit. But I guess it was a good partnership there with Midge (Alyssa Healy) to get us to a pretty competitive total there. I feel like I’m hitting the ball well. It was nice to spend some time out in the middle yesterday. But (I’m) looking to improve on that tomorrow.”
“I’m just really excited to be playing in a World Cup semi and now a final. This is why you play the game. You want to be involved in games like this. We’ve spoken a lot as a group about enjoying our cricket and really having a smile on our face and just embracing the opportunity that we’ve gotten. We wanted to do that again yesterday, and that’s what we’ll be doing in the final as well.”
England captain Heather Knight, on the other hand, said that it is a great acheivement for her side to make it to the finals of the Women’s World T20, considering the inexperience they have brought to this tournament.
“It’s probably not been the smoothest ride to get to the final, but the main thing is we’re here and we’ve got another opportunity to have a shot at winning a global trophy again and what an achievement it would be, how special it would be, if we could be double white-ball champions,” she said.
“We look back at 2009, and that’s a quality team in the history of women’s cricket, and we spoke about that team, some of the girls were obviously involved in that, and we talked about emulating them, about the opportunity to do that. It doesn’t come around very often, and I guess as a team it’s our chance to really cement ourselves in history as a brilliant white-ball (all-)format team,” Knight added.
Meanwhile, a strong turnout of fans is expected at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium for the summit showdown.
The tournament has seen an unprecedented surge of fans in a festive atmosphere, with grounds filling up even for matches not featuring the home side. The opening day saw 6,483 people turn up for a triple-header while the two matches played on November 16 at the Darren Sammy National Cricket Ground in Saint Lucia, between England and South Africa and then the West Indies and Sri Lanka, saw more than 5,000 people attend, a whopping number considering the low population of the host town.
The semi-finals of the tournament crossed both those marks, with the official crowd-count at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium standing at 8,916 and reflecting the growing popularity of the women’s game.
