In a fickle T20 world, nothing is guaranteed

Aussie opener Beth Mooney leaves nothing to chance off-field, but at the crease it’s a different story, writes LIZ WALSH

LAST month, the Australian vice-captain Rachael Haynes was asked about the best part of being in this world-dominating team.

Her answer will be key to its continued success throughout the Women’s T20 World Cup starting on Friday: “It’s our team spirit and camaraderie,” she said.

“The difficult thing about cricket is it’s not always your day or your moment, but if you can find some joy in what other people are able to do, it makes the game pretty fun. It’s one in, all in with this team.”

It’s a theme that will resonate, especially because there are question marks hovering over the form of the team’s star players, in particular its opening batter/wicketkeeper Alyssa Healy.

In the five-game tri-series played against England and India this month, Healy failed to make a double-figure score.

Her highest total was nine, on February 1 in the Aussies’ opening game against England, and after that she scored 1, 0, 1, 4.

It’s unlike Healy, particularly considering she was named player of the tournament at the 2018 World T20 in the Caribbean and last year set a new record for the highest score in the short format when she belted 148 off 68 balls against Sri Lanka in September.

Regardless, Australia remains the clear favourite to hold up the trophy at the MCG on March 8.

The Aussies are the reigning champions, are the No.1 ranked T20 side in the world, their inswinging quick Megan Schutt is the No.1 T20 bowler, and powerhouse Ellyse Perry the No.1 ranked T20 allrounder.

But talk to any of the players about the tournament and they all say one word: fickle.

T20 cricket is a fickle game and on any given day those rankings could mean absolutely nothing.

In the recent tri-series, Australia lost two of its five games (but it did beat India by six wickets in the final). Lose two games in the World Cup group stages and you’d most likely miss finals.

Leading into the year, the Aussies had lost only three of their past 26 games, so those two recent losses to India and England are worrisome because those countries pose the greatest threat.

In Australia’s pool is India, New Zealand, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, which means it will face some of the game’s most dangerous players, in particular Kiwi Sophie Devine (who set a record for most consecutive sixes when she belted five for Adelaide Strikers in last year’s WBBL) and Indian pair Harmanpreet Kaur and Smriti Mandhana.

Australia’s depth, however, should get it through.

AWAY from the crease, Beth Mooney is a meticulous planner: entirely risk-averse, she weighs up all the facts before making a decision about anything.

As such, she doesn’t own any shares, recently fretted about buying a house and she’s never bet on anything in her life.

But when she’s at the crease, it’s pure and simple instinct.

“I’m not a spontaneous person,” she says. “Change scares me a little bit, as it does for most humans, so I’ll collect all the information before I make a decision about anything. I have to think through everything, all the possible outcomes before I’m ready … every decision I make comes with a lot of thinking time. So cricket’s a good one, it puts me under the pump with my decision-making.”

As an example, Mooney explains what happened when she recently bought a house.

“A few months ago, I put in an offer on a house and it was the first one I’d done and I just thought it wouldn’t matter if I didn’t get it, it was just good experience,” she says.

“But I ended up getting it and then I rang up my best friend and my mortgage broker and just said: ‘Oh, I’ve stuffed up. I don’t think this is a good idea, it’s a lot of money’.

“If I make a decision that is a bit risky, I genuinely panic.

“With cricket, I know what I’ve done in the nets and where my game is and I know that once I walk out there I’ve got the capacity to transfer into a game.”

As one half of the Australian women’s cricket team’s opening partnership alongside Alyssa Healy, Mooney thrives on the challenge of batting at the top of the order.

“You live and die by the sword up there,” she says.

“So you have to take the game on and take some risks. I’m pretty risk-averse off the field, so it’s probably a bit funny that I look forward to that challenge when I walk onto the field, but I think it’s the best place to bat.

“You get to face the most amount of balls, you’ve only got two fielders out and the best bowlers are bowling and you want to take it to them.”

THE 26-year-old Queenslander has been remarkably consistent in the T20 format so far this year, scoring 208 runs from the five matches the Aussies played in the recent tri-series against England and India

. She scored a vital unbeaten 71 in Australia’s series final win on February 12. It’s for this reason she’ll play an important role if Australia is to win backto-back ICC Women’s T20 World Cup trophies.

Mooney enjoys the Twenty20 format — she flourished in last year’s WBBL and was player of the match in Brisbane Heat’s six-wicket win over Adelaide Strikers in the final after knocking an unbeaten 56 from 45 balls — and she’s determined to show that traditional cricket shots still have their place in the quickpaced format.

“I do love a good cover drive, a proper cricket shot,” she says. “With the way T20’s going, especially with the men, it’s all about who can hit it the furthest and the hardest, whereas I find I still want to be the kind of person that makes others believe there is still a place for traditional batters in a T20 line-up.

“Hopefully I can continue to create room for those players.”

And just like many of the best batters in the Australian men’s team, she’s been known to shadow bat in public.

“I certainly don’t bat tap in my bathroom at 5am like Steve Smith does, but I have been caught playing a particular shot walking through a shopping centre thinking about a net session I had earlier in the day,” she says with a laugh.

“I love hitting cricket balls. It’s a nice escape for my brain.

“My mind is always wandering (at the crease), but you talk to any of the best batters in the world and ask what they think about, and most of them will say nothing; their mind is sort of blank and they’re just thinking about the next ball.”