Australia’s T20 world champions home to kick WBBL into life

Australia’s world champion T20 team are home and jumping straight into action in the WBBL this weekend.

Australia’s Ashleigh Gardner, left, and Alyssa Healy pose with the World T20 trophy and excited fans in Melbourne yesterday. Picture: David Caird

Alyssa Healy has finished her World T20 tournament by chatting away with Viv Richards at the Antigua presentation ceremony and picking up more trophies than Amy Shark at an ARIAs function.

Yet while Healy, Meg Lanning and Ellyse Perry will again headline this weekend’s start to the WBBL season, it’s their Australian teammate Georgia Wareham who’s really piquing interest.

Wareham’s pick-up-and-throw run out in the final against England must have made Richards nearly fall out of his hammock in admiration. It was fast, accurate and game-changing. Richardsesque. And then she’s come on to take two wickets in a slick display of leg spin bowling. She’s spoken beautifully, played with competitiveness and joy, announcing herself as something special at 19 years of age.

After a whirlwind week that landed her in Melbourne yesterday for the Australian team’s celebration parade at Federation Square, she’ll roll the arm over for Melbourne Renegades against Sydney Thunder at St Kilda’s Junction Oval on Sunday.

All the Southern Stars have made it back for the fourth edition of a domestic T20 tournament that features a host of top-flight internationals. Success on a world stage can have two effects. You can want to let your hair down for the foreseeable future and do nothing but celebrate, or it can make you want to play again.

The Southern Stars returned home with their heads in the clouds but every one of them has said they cannot wait for their next hit. They departed Antigua on Monday, flew to London and then on to Melbourne, arriving on Wednesday night. They had yesterday’s parade before most likely sleeping like the dead. The tournament starts tomorrow. All eight teams are in action at the same location in St Kilda this weekend. It shapes as a little beauty.

“The travel’s a bit of a nightmare but in saying that the WBBL is something all the players look forward to being a part of,” Healy said. “We all split off and get to play each other, which is fun. I’m really looking forward to it. The (Sydney) Sixers are a great team to be part of.”

Healy and Perry are at the Sixers. Lanning is with Perth Scorchers. Australia coach Matthew Mott said at yesterday’s parade in Melbourne: “The girls don’t get much rest. They’re straight into the WBBL. I’ll be watching it on the telly this weekend. Maybe with a pint or two. But I think it’s really important that we capitalise on this opportunity. Cash in and enjoy it but there’s also an eye to the future.”

Wareham was a fringe player at the start of the World T20. She’s impressed Mott and the rest of the senior figures with her temperament and scarcity of bad balls. Before the World T20, she attributed her unfazed demeanour to being smashed around country Victorian parks as a 14-year-old.

“In Mortlake, which is three hours from Melbourne, there wasn’t that much women’s cricket around,” she said. “I grew up playing men’s cricket. It’s a bit different. I always used to get smashed around every now and then. I learned I’m always in the game when batters are going hard. That did a world of good for me, playing against the men.”