Tag: cricket

“We want to hold all the jewellery.”

“We’re coming in as favourites, but we come in expecting to win every single game we play and have been the favorites for a lot of tournaments now, so we’re kind of used to it,” Schutt said. “It’s a tag that we’re humbled by. We are the favorites but we thrive on that.”

They also thrive on avenging missed opportunities. Cricket’s reintroduction to the Games is the 10th major limited-overs tournament for Australia since 2010, and they have won seven of the previous nine, a run that includes five T20 World Cup crowns.

“There are obviously two tournaments in the past that have haunted us, and something that kind of reinvigorated our team is that 2017 loss,” Schutt said. “We do talk about that a lot, that has been a new era for us.

“Losses drive you forward and for us we want to win every single game that we play, we want to win every major championship. It’s about getting better and evolving as a team and each new tournament brings a new challenge.”

On Saturday that challenge is New Zealand, who were well below par in their loss to England in Thursday night’s final pool game.

New Zealand made just 71 off their 20 overs, a target England reeled in within 12 overs, with star duo Suzie Bates and skipper Sophie Devine both failing with the bat.

“That was un-New Zealand like,” Schutt said of the heavy defeat. “They never turn up twice like that in a row and its T20 cricket where any team can win, so we certainly are not taking them lightly.”

Saturday’s semi-final – which will be played on a traditional turf pitch at Edgbaston after hybrid surfaces were used during the preliminary rounds – is due to start at 1800 local time (Sunday 0300 AEST).

Take an inch against Australia and they’ll still win by a mile. That’s the realization other teams have come to in recent years as the depth of talent enjoyed by the reigning ODI and T20I world champions has come to bite them again and again.

“We were in a bit of a sticky situation early,” McGrath said after the Pakistan game. “Then Moons and I both probably struggled a bit early and had to work through that. Then that sort of allowed us to have that freedom at the end and get us to what was a really good total.”

McGrath has been a revelation in T20Is, going unbeaten in four of her six innings in the format, although she said her approach wasn’t so much about valuing her wicket.

“In T20 cricket I sort of just go out there with no fear, a bit of freedom,” she said. “I get to play my shots and I know that the batters I’ve got coming in before me are world-class, that allows me to play with that freedom.

“I’ve just been lucky that I’ve had a few not-outs because it doesn’t happen very often in T20. So I’ll just ride it for as long as I can do it.”

Her partnership with Mooney has also been key, in this instance yielding 141 runs for the third wicket.

“We’re both very chill,” McGrath said. “I remember there was a game in the Gold Coast where we got caught in traffic and it was Moons and I in the car and we literally rocked up two minutes before the start of warm-up. The security guard said to us he was glad it was us two because everyone would be freaking out.

“We’ve batted a fair bit together now. I really enjoy with Moons and we both recognize when each other is struggling.”

Mooney agreed: “She’s awesome to work with. I think we’ve got a pretty good understanding of each other and each other’s games. We’re both pretty level-headed people.

“She just comes out and plays to her strengths straight away and takes some pressure off the person at the other end, so she’s a very impressive player and hopefully she can continue that form for a while yet.”

Their union against Pakistan was all the most important after Healy, the hero of Australia’s ODI World Cup triumph in April, fell for four runs, as did Lanning, the captain. In six innings since her knock of 170 in the World Cup final against England, Healy has not passed 23. But Mooney wasn’t concerned.

“She’s looking really good in the nets,” Mooney said of Healy. “Ella She’s just been a little bit unlucky. We also know that when we get into semis and finals, that she steps up and is one of the best players in the world.

“So there’s no doubt in our changeroom that she’s going to show up and do that again for us. We’re really behind her and we know that she’s got the capacity to do some serious damage against the opposition, so I’m sure she ‘ll be fine.”

With Australia having set such a high standard for themselves, Mooney warned against seeing them as “robots” in light of “a couple of low scores”.

New Zealand are well aware of the task they face in Saturday’s second semi-final of the Commonwealth Games, scheduled to start at Edgbaston at 6pm local time, which will be 3am on Sunday in Sydney and 5am in Auckland.

“We were well below par and it wasn’t through lack of effort or lack of planning or anything like that, I think you just get days like that,” Devine said. “It’s never nice to be a part of but we’ve got to flush it down the dunny pretty quickly and move on to something that’s actually really exciting for us, playing in a semi-final against Australia at a Commonwealth Games.”

And Devine embraced underdog status against a side New Zealand, like everyone else, knows are capable of great things.

“I think a lot of the pressure is going to be on Australia,” she said. “They’ve certainly come into this competition as favorites and hopeful of taking that gold medal whereas a lot of people didn’t think we’d maybe make the semi-finals.

“We can really take that on board and just play with a bit of freedom and take it to the Aussies. We obviously know them really well, so I think our plans are going to be pretty spot on and likewise they know us really well too It’s always just a great battle against the Australians.”

But conditions changed significantly with a much more placid batting surface presented, and Maxwell missed out.

“I was shattered when I got told,” Maxwell said about his exclusion from the second Test. “It wasn’t that I thought they made the wrong call, I was just genuinely disappointed.

“I really wanted to play. I loved being a part of it [Test cricket]and I loved the thought of playing again.

“Even not thinking about Test cricket for a couple of years, I felt like I was ready again. I loved working with the coaches and coming up with new tactics to deal with difficult spin bowling and balls exploding.

“I’m glad Heady got through his fitness test because I’d have hated to be in because of an injury to one of your players. Unfortunately, they changed the conditions. If it was the same conditions for both Tests, I probably would have played.But they made a slightly better wicket, and the selectors made the right call.

“I tried not to get too excited or get my hopes up too much because I know, having been in that situation so many times and been on the wrong side of it, the ups and downs of selection and the 50-50 calls … but yeah, I allowed myself to get a little bit too excited.”

Maxwell also revealed that he felt a lot more love and positivity around his possible Test recall than he had done in the past, even if he did regret that his batting style wasn’t more accepted when he was around the Test team between 2014 and 2017 .

“It’s certainly nice to have support, where I feel like I probably didn’t have that in the early days of my Test career,” Maxwell said. “It was probably the other way around, where it was just like, no, you can’t have this guy in the team. So it’s sort of nice to see it change. When I came back into the side in 2017, it felt like there was a real shift of positivity coming my way, which was rare.

“For so long, whenever I played a reverse sweep, it was frowned upon and it’s become a staple of Test cricket wherever you play in the world. Everyone plays it.

“So it’s like, where was this six years ago? It would have been nice when I was playing, if people would have looked at me and gone, oh, visionary [laughs]. uzzie [Usman Khawaja] plays 300 of them, and he’s a superstar, [he] get 150 and like, [we] bow down to him.”

“Last year I had a preseason at Junction Oval, where we would use the same pitches, maybe four or five net sessions in a row and by the fifth net session they were basically India”

Glenn Maxwell on his preparations for the India tour

Maxwell’s experience facing all three in India, across red and white-ball cricket, will no doubt give him an advantage from a selection standpoint. He revealed the Australia selectors have spoken to him about what specific preparation would be best for him ahead of the India tour and he stressed, as he has previously, that playing Sheffield Shield cricket on Australian pitches will not help.

“They sort of just asked what do you need to get ready and would Shield cricket make a difference? I said no, it won’t,” Maxwell said. “Because the conditions are just so different over there. It’s certainly hard to prepare for spinning tracks in Australia during our first-class games.

“I think we’re able to still get nets up in Melbourne that can spin and do some different things. Last year I had a pre-season at Junction Oval, where we would use the same pitches, maybe four or five net sessions in a row and by the fifth net session they were basically India. And it was awesome. They were the best net sessions I had. Because I was going away, I think at that stage, the next subcontinent tour, it might have been the IPL and it was awesome. It was the perfect prep, and I had no excuses, I suppose, going into the next series.”