Captaincy benefits Georgia and Qld

FOR Queensland captain Georgia Redmayne the added responsibility of leadership has helped propel her to a runscoring spree that has her side on the precipice of winning a first WNCL title.

Standing in the Gold Coast Dolphins player’s way, however, is resurgent Victorian skipper Elyse Villani who has been near-unstoppable with the bat herself having rediscovered her love for the game in the past 18 months.

Redmayne (pictured) is 189 not out across her past two innings, both undefeated, and is averaging a Bradman-esque 99.25 for the tournament. She scored 121 in a record 259-run partnership with Beth Mooney this month.

Villani is 37 runs shy of breaking the tournament record of 629 runs set by Zoe Goss 25 years ago.

She has 593 runs, averaging 98.83, from eight innings.

But the Vics haven’t hoisted the trophy for more than 15 years and that fact, not any record, is the only thing driving Villani into the final in Melbourne on Saturday.

“That record is something I only learned about today. It’s not something I am aware of, or even am thinking about,” Villani said on Friday.

Queensland has lost five finals and Redmayne said after a poor start to the season both she and her team were now “peaking at the right time”.

“We lost our first two games but we are in a much better place now, we’re so keen now to play in a final and make history for Queensland,” she said.

“We got 370-odd (368 against WA) and that was a real turning point. We’ve had three batters score hundreds ... we feel like we can bat right down the order and that we can do something special.”