Don Bradman’s ‘Invincibles’ the inspiration for Australia’s women after retaining Ashes
With the Ashes already retained with three matches to spare, Meg Lanning’s Australia have now turned their focus to achieving something akin to one of the greatest sides to leave our shores.
Meet the Incredibles.
The sun hadn’t even set on their Ashes series clinching draw yesterday when Australian women’s coach Matthew Mott conceded his team was chasing the record of Don Bradman’s Invincibles — to become their own Incredibles.
Boom. Drop the mike.
By electing to bat out a draw on the final day, an unapologetic Australian captain Meg Lanning retained the Women’s Ashes trophy and set a tantalising scenario.
Since the start of the multi-format series in 2013, no side has won the trophy without dropping a match — AKA Bradman’s Invincibles.
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Bradman’s 1948 side remain the only side to tour England unbeaten. Mott said: It’s certainly something we’ve talked about. We’re still in a position to do it ... without getting in front of ourselves, Chelmsford’s a big game”
And Lanning added: ”We came over here to firstly retain the Ashes so it’s nice to tick that off. We still feel like we’ve a bit to achieve on this tour.”
“We finished 8-8 in the Ashes series in Australia and we really don’t want to feel like that again.
“There won’t be any let up. I think our group has really developed some good resilience over the last couple of years in terms of keeping the foot down when we’re on top of side.”
Which also explains why Lanning denied England any chance of working themselves back into the only Test of the series in Taunton.
After completely dominating all but the final session, Lanning opted out on setting England a possible run chase.
She simply said the home side had not earned the right to have the door opened.
“We just lost time throughout (with rain) ... we weren’t going to throw it open to England to give them a chance,” Lanning said.
To which Mott agreed.
“We’re not a charity, we don’t give up a result that easily. We’ve won the first three ODIs and we deserve the opportunity to bat it out.”
The multi-format series now moves to Chelmsford on Friday for the first of three T20 internationals.
Originally published as Don Bradman’s ‘Invincibles’ the inspiration for Australia’s women after retaining Ashes