T20 World Cup final: The biggest game in women’s cricket history

The Australian team is hoping the MCG is not as spin friendly as the Sydney Showground track that allowed India’s Poonam Yadav to bamboozle them.

Australian skipper Meg Lanning during her match-winning innings in the semi-final against South Africa. Picture: AFP

The Australian team is hoping the MCG is not as spin friendly as the Sydney Showground track that allowed India’s Poonam Yadav to bamboozle them in the first match of the T20 World Cup.

No matter which way you spin it, Sunday’s match shapes up as the most important in the history of the women’s game.

The game has got its dream billing with the locals at the world famous stadium against an Indian side whose fortunes could change the course of the sport.

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There is a feeling in women’s cricket that if the visitors win it will convert the BCCI to women’s cricket in much the same way the men’s win in the 2007 tournament won over the country and its formerly cynical administration to the shortest form.

The Indian Premier League followed that surprise victory and the landscape was readjusted accordingly. For better and worse.

Yadav, the equal leading bowler in the tournament with nine wickets at an average of 9.88 and an economy rate of 5.56, took 4-19 against Australia in the opening match of the tournament, cutting a swath through the middle order with slow bowling on a pitch that was even slower.

Her wrong ’un was particularly effective and bamboozled most of the batters.

Captain Meg Lanning, who guided the Australians through the semi-final against South Africa with a steady 49 not out, said the team would be better prepared this time. “We will talk about Poonam Yadav,” Lanning said.

“We’ll do all our research in the next few days, have a look at them but also how we can play.”

Beth Mooney, the opener who is Australia’s leading batter in the tournament, is hoping for conditions that aren’t as friendly for the wrist spinner.

“Hopefully they’ve prepared something (at the MCG) that will suit us a bit more,” Mooney said on Friday.

“Because the Showground probably wasn’t ideal for our batting and bowling. But that game is done now. The slate is wiped clean … it’s about who comes to the party on the day.

“We know they’re going to be a spin-heavy attack.

“We’ve always planned for that when we play India, but we’ve had a lot of success against them as well.”

Mooney’s 181 runs at an average of 45 in the tournament is closely matched by teenage Indian star Shafali Verma who has 161 at an average of 40, but the 16-year-old’s strike rate of 161 — Mooney’s is 118 — makes her the most feared hitter in the contest.

Verma has hit more sixes (19) than anyone in the World Cup. Megan Schutt, who has the same number of wickets as Yadav, admits the fearless Indian has gotten on top of her before.

“There are obviously some plans we’re going to revisit as bowlers,” Schutt said.

“Clearly I don’t think I’m the best match-up to those two in the power play, they find me easy to play.

“But it’s not a bad thing. It’s cool we go in against a team we played in the tri-series and we know where they’re at as a team and same with them with us.”

India scores at 8.25 runs in the opening powerplay thanks to Verma’s hitting while Australia goes at just under six runs per over.

The teen’s presence is already changing thinking at home in India. Her father, Sanjeev, a jeweller from a particularly conservative part of the country, told ESPN Cricinfo his community was happy for her but with some reservations.

“Since the start of the World Cup, during my morning walks or on my way to my shop, strangers, neighbours, random passers-by have stopped me to say, ‘your daughter has forced us to follow women’s cricket’,” Sanjeev told the website. “There was a time when people used to say I’m ruining my daughter’s life by making her play because they don’t expect girls to be in sports.

“Just make them work at home, then you are a good father, otherwise you are spoiling your daughter (they say).”

The tournament has been a tightrope walk for the Australians who lost fast bowler Tayla Vlaeminck before a ball was bowled, then lost the first game to India, ensuring each that followed had to be won. Then they lost Ellyse Perry before the semi-final.

That Sunday’s game got on at all was something of a miracle given the first semi was washed out on Thursday and the home side only managed to get back on after a rain delay between innings with minutes to spare.

If the match had been abandoned South Africa would have advanced to Sunday’s final.

The team had a late night in Sydney on Thursday, contacting Vlaeminck on FaceTime around midnight when they sang the team song.

They flew to Melbourne on Friday morning to prepare for the game.