World dominance is driving Australia’s pursuit of a sixth T20 world title as they put together to tackle first-time finalists South Africa within the decider in Cape Town on Sunday.
That’s the view of Australia allrounder Ashleigh Gardner, participant of the match from their five-run victory over India within the semi-final on Thursday.
“Obviously, coming to a World Cup, you want to be World Cup champions,” Gardner mentioned after her match-winning 18-ball 31 and 2-37.
“So, we want to be champions of the world. We want to win everything. I think every team wants to do that, but we certainly don’t want to leave here without a medal.
“I hate shedding. I believe everybody hates shedding. So, I really feel like that is in all probability one of many issues that individuals all the time take into consideration.
“But it’s just being able to, I guess, as a team, we always say that we want to keep evolving. And ultimately if we’re evolving as athletes and as individuals, we are going to get better.”
South Africa quick bowler Shabnim Ismail mentioned the hosts will look to utilise their familiarity with the Australians on the WBBL to drag off an upset.
“We know exactly what we can expect against the Australian team, which is a world-class team,” Ismail mentioned on Friday after South Africa, who haven’t dropped a recreation since shedding to Sri Lanka of their match opener, beat England by six runs within the second semi-final at Newlands.
The 34-year-old, who’s a daily within the Australian home T20 competitors together with a lot of her South Africa teammates, added: “They’ve got a batting line-up from one to basically maybe eight-nine, and we speak about obviously getting into the tail.”
Australia have by no means misplaced to South Africa in any World Cup throughout eight fixtures within the ODI format and 6 within the T20I equal.
In the group phases of the continued eighth version of the 20-over showpiece, Tahlia McGrath’s 33-ball 57 trumped Tazmin Brits’ 36-ball 45 to arrange Australia’s six-wicket win in Gqeberha.
Ismail believes piling on stress towards a “calm” Australia will likely be key to South Africa’s probabilities of clinching the nation’s first-ever World Cup amongst women and men.
“To be honest, I don’t actually think Australia was put under immense pressure throughout this whole World Cup and in other World Cups as well,” Ismail mentioned.
“So, just for us to go out there and put the pressure on the first five-six batters. And we know that at the back end we can defend anything.
“We know we have now a robust bowling unit and only for the batters to come back out and play courageous cricket, that is what is going on to get us over the road.”
The same surface that saw a full 80 overs bowled across the two semi-finals will be used for the final.
The two knockouts yielded 661 runs for the loss of 24 wickets, 14 of those going to pacers and eight to spinners.
In both games chasing teams India and England lost the toss and ended up losing.
The pitch was deemed “good” by most players from the four semi-finalists and described as “flat” by South Africa quick Marizanne Kapp.
Gardner said they were hoping to score 170-180.
“I believe that is undoubtedly defendable, particularly in a World Cup remaining.
“It’s obviously high pressure, but yeah … if you bowl well enough, you can certainly defend that.”
Rain is just not predicted for Sunday however within the unlikely occasion of a washout the reserve day will come into play.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
