Women’s CWC: Captain Meg Lanning hails Australia’s batting lineup after NZ win

Wellington [New Zealand], March 13 (ANI): Australia captain Meg Lanning praised the great batting depth of the team, after their dominant win against New Zealand by 141 runs at the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup in Wellington.
It was a clinical performance from the six-time World Cup champions as they successfully defended 269/8 by bowling their opponents out for just 128 in the 31st over at Basin Reserve.
“We thought we were in a bit of pressure, but that’s the beauty of our batting lineup that we have great depth. We have players who can rescue us in a way that allows us to build the platform to play the way we did at the back end. Training is overrated I suppose,” said Meg Lanning in the post-match presentation.
“It was great to have Gardner back, it was a tough 10 days for her and looking forward to the rest of the tournament for her. It certainly gave us the momentum going into the bowling innings. We felt it was a good score without being a match-winning one, we knew we had to take early wickets, that’s why we went hard early with the ball,” she said.
There were strong contributions from nearly every member of Meg Lanning’s powerful side, with Ellyse Perry (68) and Tahlia McGrath (57) scoring valuable half-centuries and the returning Ashleigh Gardner (48* from just 18 balls) adding the finishing touches on a late Australian flurry with the bat.
Talking about dropping Jess Jonassen against New Zealand, Lanning remarked,”I had told Schutt that she may not open the bowling, but I’m not sure she was prepared to come on so late (laughs). Bit different today but it seemed to work. We had a tough selection today, Jess Jonassen missed out, she is a world-class bowler but we felt we wanted the extra pace option was the way to go because we wanted to be aggressive up front. It worked today, it may not another day, but that’s the way we want to look at every game this World Cup.” (ANI)