ICC Women’s World Cup 2022 | Australia prove that they are leagues ahead of the rest

 On Monday, 21 March, there were two undefeated teams left in the ICC Women’s World Cup 2022. The said teams - Australia and South Africa had dominated the opposition and there was a semblance of fair competition. Go punch someone of your own size, as they say.

Till this point, the competition had been unfair to the rest of the teams, as these two had been in the class of their own, with a mentality that stood out from the other competitors. While Australia had outplayed every opposition, the Proteas came into the game eking out victories that was a testament to their strong mentality.

However, on Tuesday, South Africa were caught in the middle of the Australian thunderstorm, comprehensively losing the match, despite putting up their highest total in the competition. 271 was no good against a tall Australian batting order, who chased the score down with close to five overs remaining. The five wicket victory was set up by a stunning innings from Meg Lanning who scored 135* off 130 balls to steer the Australian ship. Her 135* is now the highest score in the tournament, beating her teammate Rachael Haynes’ 130 from the England game. In turn, this also made Lanning the current top scorer in the tournament with 358 runs surpassing South African Laura Wolvaart who follows her with 350 runs from five matches.

Lanning’s innings, alongside steady contributions from the middle order might have turned the 272-run chase easy for Australia, but Proteas were as much to blame for dropping as much as five catches. Australia’s speciality in this World Cup is that they had quite deep, and there is no way to know for sure that if it would have actually made any difference, but the fact of the matter remains that SA were not at par with their efforts in the game. Skipper Sune Luus spoke about the same in her post match interaction and stated that they were going to have a word about it.

Lanning’s innings was studded with 15 boundaries and one six as she built her innings patiently and picked up the pace from the 15th over of the innings. Australia’s attack started with her partnership alongside Beth Mooney (21 off 23) as the duo added 62 runs between them in just 52 balls. The biggest partnership of the match soon followed, with Tahlia McGrath (32 off 35) joined the ranks and dominated the middle phases of the game. These overs took the match away from SA as they failed to control the 93-run stand between 20-33 overs.

Contributions from Ashleigh Gardner (22 off 26) and Annabel Sutherland (22 off 23) made things easy for Lanning and Australia chased the target down in 45.2 overs.

This loss delayed South Africa’s chances of entering the semi-finals of the competition, and they now have to win one of their remaining two games to confirm their position in the knockout stage of the tournament.

Earlier in the day, a patient knock from Wolvaart (90 off 134) set South Africa up for a big total. They started well with Lizelle Lee (36 off 44) taking the attack to the opposition, putting up 88 runs for the first wicket. With the wicket favouring the bowlers slightly more in the first innings, SA had to be patient, but took to Australia in the final 5 overs, thanks to Marizanne Kapp (30 off 21) and Chloe-Leslie Tyron (17 off 9). But as it would turn out, they did not have enough runs on the board and lost the game.

South Africa play Bangladesh next and should be confident of beating them to enter the semi finals fixture. However, the story of the game was certainly how strong Australia are looking at the moment and how they improve further with each game.

Their batting order is a force to reckon with and it is highly unlikely that results are going to change with them in such top form.