Australia has announced their squad for the upcoming white ball series against West Indies, starting from next month. Taking a closer look at the Australian squad gearing up for the upcoming series against the West Indies, the team core has mostly remained unchanged except Meg Lanning not present in the squad.
After taking a hiatus from International cricket and battling with an injury, Australian skipper Meg Lanning is working her way back to the game. She missed out on the Women’s Ashes in July this year but recently participated in a home warm-up match between Victoria and New South Wales.
Interestingly, Lanning wasn’t named in the national squad revealed on September 8 for the upcoming ODI and T20I series against West Indies next month. This shows that she’s still in the process of recuperating. In her absence, Alyssa Healy is slated to lead the team, while the star all-rounder Ellyse Perry, who’s been nursing a knee injury, is also waiting to make a comeback during the series. It’s worth noting that Healy has been going through her own recovery and is anticipated to be fully fit before the series begins.
Looking at the Australian roster for the upcoming matches against West Indies, the core of the team stays mostly unchanged from the one that claimed victory in the Women’s Ashes in England, except for Lanning’s absence. She had to step away owing to secret medical difficulties. Lanning did participate in a Cricket Victoria camp on the Sunshine Coast last week.
In Meg Lanning’s example, Victoria’s chief selector, Shawn Flegler, believes that her return should begin with evaluating her fitness in domestic cricket before gradually making her way back into the national team.
“That’s the plan. We’re hopeful she will come through domestic cricket first up and see how things progress,” Flegler stated.
“She was up at the Sunshine Coast and I caught up with her there. She’s progressing well, just part of that return-to-play plan. She’s going well, Meg. We’re very hopeful that she’s back on deck at some point during the summer for Australia,” the Cricket Victoria chief selector continued.
Turning the focus to the Women’s Ashes campaign and the upcoming challenges facing the Australian women’s cricket team, Shawn Flegler emphasized the significance of the India tour and the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh next year. Flegler highlighted that the team had conducted a thorough review of the prestigious Women’s Ashes and concluded that Australia possesses a roster of talented players capable of achieving glory. However, he acknowledged the impressive performance of the England Women’s team in comparison to the visiting Australians. Nevertheless, Flegler affirmed that the skills and qualities synonymous with Australian cricket are undeniably evident.
“It was a great challenge throughout the Ashes. We didn’t play at our best and England certainly played very well,” Flegler. We reviewed that series, we still think we’ve got a great group of players who can take us through to the T20 World Cup (in Bangladesh next year),” Flegler further added.
Australia Women Squad for multi-format series versus West Indies:
Alyssa Healy (c), Tahlia McGrath, Darcie Brown, Ashleigh Gardner, Kim Garth, Grace Harris, Jess Jonassen, Alana King, Phoebe Litchfield, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Wareham
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