Australian captain Meg Lanning has denied that her team lost the World Cup opening match due to the pressure of playing in front of their fans at home. Australia was handed a 17-run loss by Team India in the opener match of the Women’s T20 World Cup held at Sydney Showgrounds last night. Lanning was one of the batters who did not make it to the double-digit figures.
Only Alyssa Healy and Ashleigh Gardner, who scored 51 and 34 respectively, found any sort of momentum against the Indian team, as the Australians lost all their wickets for 115 runs while pursuing India’s 132/4.
Lanning further said that her team will not dwell on the loss, but will instead focus all their efforts towards their upcoming game against Sri Lanka, set to take place at the WACA ground on Monday.
She said, “We’ve had a lot of experience playing in front of our home crowd and it was a great atmosphere. We really enjoyed it even though we didn’t get the result that we wanted. I do not think any of that (pressure) played a part in the result.”
Lanning further said that the Australians have not been playing well as of late, as they lost three of their last six games.
“We’ve got to play a little bit better cricket than what we have. We are coming up against some really good teams, India is a good team, and we were expecting a tough challenge last night.”
“I think it is a very open World Cup. It is always hard to win every game in the group stages especially.”
Lanning spoke about her love for the WACA ground, somewhere she has scored quite consistent runs.
“It is a ground I love batting at, but I think a lot of batters around the country would say that. We are looking forward to getting out on the WACA.”
