Women set sights on bigger total
CRICKET: Intent on reclaiming their world title in the Caribbean, Australia’s women want to be pushing 180 regularly as their new par score in Twenty20 cricket.
The Aussies will face Ireland early this morning (AEST) in their second match of the World T20 tournament, fresh off a comfortable 52-run win over Pakistan.
While they cruised to 5-165 with the bat in their first-up win, the Australians were convinced that was short of what they could have scored after they were 0-58 after the opening six-over powerplay.
Alyssa Healy scored her 49 off 28 balls, but Australia went through a period where they scored just 11 runs off three overs in the middle of the innings after she was dismissed.
Ominously, too, chief rivals in their group, India, whacked 5-194 against the highly regarded New Zealand attack, albeit on a slightly newer pitch.
“I think if we’re honest, we probably left a few out there (against Pakistan),” Healy said.
“They bowled really well in the middle period and sort of shut us down a little bit.
“In saying that, chasing 160, 170 on that wicket was never going to be easy. So I think the batting line-up did a really good job in the end.
“But I think moving forward we’ll look to push 180.”
The Australians began their more aggressive approach after India made 4-281 against them inside 41 overs in last year’s rain-affected one-day World Cup semi-final loss.
“We learnt that the hard way and spoke about that post that World Cup and decided that our cricket moving forward we were going to take the positive approach,” Healy said.
“If we had our back against the wall we were going to come out swinging.”