Women’s T20: Meg Lanning named captain of Delhi Capitals in inaugral WPL season
Australia’s all conquering captain, Meg Lanning’s latest honour is to be named skipper of the Delhi Capitals in the inaugral Women’s Premier League.
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Decorated Australia cricket captain Meg Lanning will skipper the Delhi Capitals in the inaugural Women’s Premier League, the franchise said on Thursday.
The 30-year-old has led her country to four Twenty20 World Cup titles -- the latest in South Africa last month -- and a one-day crown.
The WPL, a T20 competition, begins on Saturday and has been touted as a game-changer for women’s cricket.
“It’s a very proud moment for me to firstly be involved in a franchise like the Delhi Capitals and then to be named captain is a huge honour,” Lanning said in Mumbai, where the WPL will take place over the course of this month.
“The fact that the WPL is now up and running and provides a platform for young girls from around the world, but also from India as well, to take the next step and be involved in something like this is amazing,” she added.
Batter Lanning has played 132 T20 internationals, hitting two centuries and 15 half-centuries at an average of 36.61 and strike rate of 116.37.
She has led Australia in 100 T20 matches, the most by any women’s player to captain a side in the format.
Lanning will face off in the WPL against fellow Australians Beth Mooney, who was named captain of the Gujarat Giants, and Alyssa Healy, who will lead the UP Warriorz.
The WPL’s five debut franchises together sold for nearly $200 million -- more than the eight founding teams of the men’s Indian Premier League in 2008.
Together with media rights for the first five seasons, the WPL has already earned India’s cricket board a shade under $700 million, making it the second most valuable domestic women’s sport competition globally after US professional basketball.
Jemimah Rodrigues, an Indian all-rounder and vice-captain of the Delhi Capitals, said it was a “dream” to play in the WPL.
“This is something we, as a women’s team... have been dreaming (about) from a very long time,”
PROOF AUSSIE CHAMPIONS ROBBED IN WOMEN’S IPL FARCE
- Ben Horne
Bradman had the Invincibles. Meg Lanning has the Immortals.
Where Bradman’s legendary team was labelled as such just for one tour of England after the War, the Australian women’s team is now an era of unprecedented world domination.
Sunday night’s dazzling triumph over South Africa at a sold out Newlands in Cape Town is Australia’s third straight Twenty20 World Cup crown – the second time Australia has completed a hat-trick of Cup wins in that format.
Lanning’s team has also won the 2018 and 2020 T20 World Cups, and last year the 50-over World Cup and the inaugural Commonwealth Games gold medal.
It’s a spectacular achievement and one that has been criminally underappreciated in recent weeks.
For this Australian team not to be nominated for the Laureus World Sports Awards is a disgrace and makes a mockery of the once prestigious awards.
The emphatic 19-run win in Cape Town also spotlights the fact the Australian superstars – as a collective – were disrespectfully undervalued at the recent Women’s Premier League Auction in India.
Sure, Ashleigh Gardner deservedly cashed in with a monster $558,000 deal, but if it was a fair market, five or six of her teammates should have been bought for similar money.
Even Beth Mooney at $360,000 was a bargain for the WPL, as she showed with her unbeaten 74 off 53 balls.
Mooney is the big match Queen, having also smashed 61 in the Commonwealth Games gold medal match, 62 in the ODI World Cup final and a near identical 78 not out in the 2020 T20 World Cup final at the MCG.
There is ice running through her veins and she is a priceless commodity.
But what about Alyssa Healy only going for $120,000 and Meg Lanning for just $190,000?
These are all-time superstars of the game and some of the most marketable cricketers in Australia, male or female.
The Women’s Premier League was always going to favour Indian players, but it has robbed members of the greatest team of all time just reward for their pioneering achievements in women’s cricket.
Lanning’s team should be Australia’s most celebrated sporting team.
They’re humble, they’re likeable, they’re elite athletes and above all, they’re an inspiration to young girls – and boys – across the country and around the world.
The pressure is now on Cricket Australia and the Australian Cricketers Association to lift the Women’s Big Bash League salary cap substantially and also give the nationally contracted players a massive pay rise in the coming months.
The fact Gardner is earning more in the WPL than the entire WBBL salary cap is great on one level, but it’s a challenge for Australian cricket to up its game.
Cricket Australia and the ACA have led the world in promoting women’s sport – but the world they’ve helped create is transforming fast, and those organistaions need to continue moving with the times.
The opportunity is there to turn Lanning’s dynasty into an even bigger future for Australian cricket.
AUSSIE WOMEN CEMENT GOAT STATUS WITH SIXTH T20 TITLE
Martin Gabor
Australia’s golden generation of cricketers have added more silverware to their already heaving trophy cabinet after they knocked off tournament hosts South Africa by 19 runs to win the Women’s T20 World Cup final.
There have been some dominant teams in Australia over the decades but this current crop of superstars might just be the best we’ve ever seen with Monday morning’s triumph adding to the success they had last year when they won Commonwealth Games gold as well as the Ashes and 50-over World Cup.
It was also their third-straight T20 World Cup triumph and the sixth time they’ve won it out of the eight times it’s been held, although Katy Perry wasn’t on hand to help them celebrate this time.
“It’s very special,” player of the match Beth Mooney said.
“We haven’t had it all our own way this tournament, but it’s been incredible being here in South Africa.
“It’s a very special group.”
Australia’s 6/156 looked slightly short at the innings break, but some tight bowling had the hosts on the back foot from the outset and they never recovered.
“You guys are very annoying,” South African captain Sune Luus joked after her side’s seventh loss in a row to the Aussies.
“You have been inspiring the world of cricket for a very long time and I know a lot of players look up to you.”
The worry for the rest of the world is that, while they’re getting better, the Aussies are showing no signs of slowing down with the WBBL unearthing an endless assembly line of future stars who can carry the torch once the veterans eventually retire.
But that might not be for another few years, and by then, the likes of Tahlia McGrath could be simply unstoppable which is a scary thought given she’s already the number one batter in the world but was hardly sighted at this World Cup.
“We’ve been longing for this moment since the last World Cup,” player of the tournament Ashleigh Gardner said.
“I don’t think words can describe how proud I am.”
SIMPLY THE BETH
The rankings say she’s second, but Beth Mooney proved yet again that she’s the best batter in world cricket right now with her unbeaten 74 off 53 proving the difference on a deck that looked deceptively tricky.
Three years after she struck 78 not out in the final against India, Mooney became the first woman to hit two half-centuries in women’s T20 World Cup finals.
The leading run-scorer in WBBL history has a knack of delivering on the biggest stage, and while some of her teammates made starts, she made sure she finished the job after also playing a key role with 54 in the semi-final.
The Belinda Clark Award winner finished the tournament with 206 runs after managing just two in the first two matches, and she could dominate for many more years to come with bowlers out of ideas on how to contain her.
“I’m glad I can fake it that much because I certainly wasn’t calm or collected out there,” Mooney said.
“I walked off thinking we hadn’t got enough on the board, but you can’t judge a wicket until both teams have batted on it. It was bloody tough out there.
“I was really disappointed with my output in the first couple of games, but the belief within the support staff that they have in me is unbelievable so I knew I could turn it around at some point.”
VETERANS ON TARGET
There was some sloppy ground fielding mixed in with a couple of run outs, but in the end a couple of Australia’s most reliable servants held their nerve with the ball to see off South Africa’s valiant run chase.
The hosts recovered from a wobbly start with Laura Wolvaardt (61) and Chloe Tryon (25) adding 55 for the fourth wicket to give them a sniff.
Wolvaardt’s knock saw her become the leading run-scorer for the tournament, but her dismissal in the 17th over ended their hopes when Megan Schutt showed why she’s Australia’s leading T20 international wicket taker of all time to trap her in front.
Tryon tried valiantly to keep them in the contest with a big six off Jonassen, but the veteran spinner got her revenge two balls later to seal the deal in her 100th T20 for Australia after being recalled for the semi-final.
“I thought once I was out, that was sort of it,” the spinner said.
“My job was to keep everyone hydrated and be up and about on the sidelines.”
SOUTH AFRICA ON THE UP
They controversially axed one of their greatest players before the World Cup started, they were then stunned by Sri Lanka in the tournament opener and had to claw their way into the finals.
So you can understand why veteran Marizanne Kapp’s emotions got the better of her as she burst into tears during the South African anthem before play.
This is a country that has notoriously faltered in semi-finals in both men’s and women’s World Cup, but the future looks bright for the Proteas after reaching the decider on home soil.
It was fitting that Kapp (2/35) got the first breakthrough when she removed former Sixers teammate Alyssa Healy to have the crowd on its feet, but the bowlers didn’t have much joy until Shabnim Ismail found herself on a hat-trick in the final over.
“It’s been such an incredible tournament to be a part of,” Wolvaardt said.
“To experience this has been once in a lifetime.”
Originally published as Women’s T20: Meg Lanning named captain of Delhi Capitals in inaugral WPL season
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