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Australia’s record-breaking, history-making women’s Twenty20 cricket team seem to be everything their male counterparts are not.
On Sunday, Australia became the first team, male or female, to win three straight world T20 titles, No other team has ever won more than one.
A comprehensive six-wicket win over old rival England in the final in Dhaka made it three titles over a four-year period.
Contrast that to the success-starved Aussie T20 men, still searching for their first title after enduring a poor campaign in Bangladesh where they won just one of four matches and failed to advance beyond their group.
While the men seem to to find the format a conundrum, their female counterparts have it down pat.
Even a loss to New Zealand in their opening game didn’t faze the Southern Stars, who won their five subsequent fixtures, beating the other three semi-finalists along the way.
The most worrying thing for opposing sides is that the Australian women’s team is still relatively young despite having enormous big match experience.
All but three of the 11 that played in the final are aged under 25 and none are over 30.
Five of them have played in all three world title-winning teams and eight of them participated in the last two finals.
Established superstars and proven match-winners in captain Meg Lanning and allrounder Ellyse Perry are already seasoned veterans at the ages of 22 and 23 respectively.
Dashing batter Lanning topped the tournament run aggregates with 257 at a strike rate of 158.
She has logged 41 T20 and 28 one-day internationals and is into her fourth season of international cricket.
Australia’s World T20 win is a significant feather in the cap of Lanning, who has captained the side for less than three months since regular skipper Jodie Fields was sidelined by appendicitis and a broken finger.
When Fields became available again, she was named vice-captain for the World T20 behind Lanning, but withdrew from the team in late February, citing insufficient preparation.
Being captain certainly hasn’t curbed Lanning’s attacking instincts.
The Victorian right-hander pounded a women’s T20 international world record score of 126 off 65 balls in the group game against Ireland.
She then reduced the chase of 106 to win the final to a stroll as her blistering 44 off 30 balls belied the big match pressure.
Australia’s tournament-high 18 sixes was a reflection of Lanning’s attacking attitude and was in stark contrast to England, whose batters didn’t clear the boundary once in the whole competition.
Dual international Perry has amassed 56 T20 and and 60 one-day internationals since blooded as a 16-year-old.
Perry might be on the outer with the Matildas at the moment, but the soccer international proved yet again she is a big occasion performer on the international cricket stage.
Her breezy batting effort in the final, which included the winning hit, followed a bowling stint of 2-13 from her four overs and a catch to dismiss England’s top scorer, Heather Knight.
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