Australia’s women’s cricket team continues to exceed every expectation
Related Story: Australia thrashes West Indies to reach World T20 final
After an agonising period of public shame and internal upheaval, Australian cricket was supposedly in need of a good news story.
But, of course, it already had one; has done for quite some time now.
The progress of the Australian women's team to another T20 World Cup final after a crushing 71-run semi-final victory over the West Indies is merely the latest accomplishment of a team not merely rewarding an overdue investment in its vast potential, but exceeding every expectation.
A victory ground out with patient batting on a pudding bowl pitch in Antigua, then seized with precise bowling and brilliant fielding, was what we have come to expect from a team replete with superstar talent and big game experience.
But in this fraught cricketing summer, it is the way an Australian cricketer plays as much as the result itself that seems to matter most.
In that context, a nation can turn its lonely cricketing eye to Sunday's World Cup final knowing it will see Australia play with a blend of top-class skill and infectious enthusiasm that is a pure joy to behold.
External Link: SouthernStars twitter: Them post-win feels
Right now the only thing this team doesn't have is a nickname, with the "Southern Stars" label abandoned in favour of the rather more literal, yet deservedly more respectful "Australian Women's Cricket Team".
The re-branding seemed well justified during the semi-final at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium.
After all, why do you need stars in the title when there are so many on the field?
Significantly, three of the most significant contributors to Australia's latest victory are already household names — at least in those households that celebrate the performances of world-class cricketers.
Alyssa Healy, Meg Lanning and Ellyse Perry are not "women's cricketers" but elite players whose images demand a place on every cricket-loving child's bedroom wall.
Healy, who collected her fourth player-of-the-match trophy in this tournament, has performed so brilliantly and with such resilience that she is no longer a wife and a niece. Instead, surely, Mitchell Starc must always be referred to as her husband and Ian Healy as her uncle.
External Link: SouthernStars twitter: Superb striking from Healy
In doubt due to a concussion suffered in the final group game after a collision with the bowler, Healy wore glasses behind the stumps and, in every sense, put on a spectacle.
"I think it knocked some sense into me," said Healy after swiping a typically aggressive 46 from 36 balls and setting the trend in the field with a brilliant reflexive runout of opener Hayley Matthews.
Meanwhile, Lanning scored a measured 33 in conditions that did not allow for her usual free-slowing stroke play, Perry landed the early killer blows with the ball and around them an energised team romped into yet another big final.
As inevitable as the result, the success — and, particularly, the joyful nature — of the Australian women seems a wonderful counterpoint to the black clouds still hovering over their male counterparts after the sandpaper disgrace.
Perry was asked recently by the BBC why she thought the women had been highly praised in Cricket Australia's recent cultural review while other elements of the game were spared no mercy.
Perry cited the life experience of the part-time athlete — living mostly outside the "gilded bubble" — as a significant factor in the teams' mature perspective.
"I think if you look at any female sporting code in comparison with their male counterparts, there is a little bit of a difference in life experience," Perry said.
"A lot of the girls in our team have worked full-time jobs or have had to work part-time jobs or have studied full-time whilst juggling aspirations in sport.
"In some ways, I think that gives you a bit of a grounding and real level-headedness that potentially — through absolutely no fault of their own — the guys haven't had in the last 10 or 15 years because the game is so demanding and they're travelling 11 months of the year."
A T20 World Cup victory would provide further validation of Cricket Australia's strong investment in the women's program and, you would hope, accelerate progress toward parity with the men's team.
Yet, at the same time, Perry is rightly wary of the players forgetting the virtues of their part-time careers while embracing the trappings — and, hopefully, trophies — their skill and achievements demand.
"It is really easy to get caught up in a bubble," she says. "We've been away for five weeks as a group now staying in lovely hotels and if we're not training or playing we're by the pool or at the beach.
"It's a pretty easy lifestyle to get used to."
A lifestyle hard earned by a team that is doing more than any other to foster enthusiasm for the game. Not, so far, one that has changed the way they play, or who they are.
Offsiders with Kelli Underwood airs on ABC TV Sundays at 10:00am.
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