Australia’s World Cup Report: Talented new generation face sterner competition
Wins – 4
Losses – 2
Finishing position – Semi-finalists
Australia have dominated women’s cricket at senior level in recent years, winning five of the seven ICC T20 World Cups and winning four of the last seven ICC Cricket World Cups.
The new generation of Australian cricketers look set to continue the exceptionally high talent level, with a number of their players impressing on an individual level during this inaugural U19 event.
But yet, the Australia team’s experience suggests that this era won’t have things their own way to quite the same extent.
A heavy loss to Bangladesh saw Australia start the tournament in troubling fashion. But they recovered superbly, knowing that net run rate was likely to be important, and running in a series of heavy wins following that first-up shock.
It is also worth noting that Australia were the only side to beat eventual-champions India, doing so in emphatic fashion during the Super Six stage.
A semi-final against England was the reward for their Super Six efforts, and the Aussie bowlers were outstanding against one of the better batting line-ups in the tournament.
But Australia’s failure to chase down 99 with the bat will leave the squad with plenty of questions to ponder as they look ahead to future tournaments and possibly, for many of this talented group of players, future senior international appearances.
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Australia’s strike bowler had a huge impact at the tournament, finishing as the World Cup’s leading wicket-taker with 12 dismissals to her name.
Those wickets came consistently throughout the campaign, with Clark taking at least a brace in each of her five appearances with the ball.
Most notably, she made a big impact against the highest calibre of opponents, taking 2/18 against India and 3/15 against England as she troubled the best batters at the U19 level.
Don’t be surprised to see Clark push for a senior call-up before long.
Australia’s Claire Moore has a fair bit of big-game franchise experience thanks to her time with the Sydney Sixers, and she brought that knowledge out to the middle to finish as Australia’s highest scorer in the tournament.
Her 141 runs came at an average of 35.25. But she will depart South Africa with a bit of disappointment given that she failed to really build on decent starts after a half-century in the opening game against Bangladesh.
On the plus side, twice it was Moore who was out in the middle to finish the job in low chases, hitting 25* against India to ease her side to a win and 22* against USA to do the same in that group fixture.
Bangladesh – Lost by 7 wickets
Bangladesh beat Australia in any ICC event for the first time in the U19 Women's T20 World Cup.
USA – Won by 9 wickets
Sri Lanka – Won by 108 runs
India – Won by 7 wickets
UAE – Won by 6 wickets
England – Lost by 3 runs