Star all-rounder Ash Gardner says the ultra-successful Australian team deserves more fan support
The Australian women’s cricket team is arguably the most successful of any sport and going into a blockbuster series players want their time in the spotlight.
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Australian all-round star Ash Gardner declared her desire for the Ashes to stretch to a three-Test series in the future as she issued a rallying cry for cricket lovers to show more support for one of the nation’s most successful teams.
Hoping to piggyback on the record-breaking success of the Australian men’s team’s blockbuster series against India, which was completed on Sunday, Gardner said she her teammates had been a “little bit disappointed” at how the women’s team had lived somewhat in the shadows in recent seasons.
Despite being the No.1 ranked team in ODIs and T20s, having won 48 out of 59 matches across all three formats in the past two years, Gardner suggested she and her all-conquering teammates didn’t feel the sort of love the men’s team had enjoyed.
But with a stand-alone Ashes series against arch enemies England beginning in Sydney on Sunday, with two more ODIs followed by three T20s and the inaugural pink ball Test at the MCG to conclude the showdown between the two top-ranked teams in world cricket, Gardner was hopeful of enthusiastic local support.
“The Ashes, it’s just behind a World Cup for us, in my opinion, and it would be great to be able to get the support which I think is deserved, for both teams,” she said at the SCG on Wednesday.
“I think we have been so successful over the last five or six years and it’s probably one part of our game which we have been a little bit disappointed with, is not seeing as many people as we’d like.
“Fingers crossed after a successful men’s series people can kind of come and support our series as well. We are going up against our fiercest rivals and they (Australia’s men’s team) just went up against theirs.
“The men have had their limelight and hopefully we can come in off the back of theirs and have a successful summer.”
Gardner said the team, across both white-ball formats, had been emboldened to be “fearless” since losing four of six T20s and ODIs during the last Ashes in England in 2023, having won the preceding Test to hold onto the Ashes.
It’s one reason why she would like to see the multi-format series expand to three Tests, knowing a packed schedule would make it difficult.
“Personally, I would love to see 3-3-3 (thee Tests, three T20s and three ODIs),” she said.
“It would make the tours a lot longer, and I’m not sure where you would fit it in knowing we have to play overseas competitions as well.
“I would love to play more Test cricket against England. Playing one Test seems like a bit of novelty sometimes.
“The way our two teams match up, it would be a really cool Test series to see who comes out on top. But I don’t think that’s going to change anytime soon.”
Originally published as Star all-rounder Ash Gardner says the ultra-successful Australian team deserves more fan support
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