Australia has qualified for the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 after a 3-0 whitewash of Sri Lanka in the ICC Women’s Championship. Australia captain Meg Lanning has lauded her side for the way it adjusted to the conditions to become the first side to book a place at next summer’s event to be held in England.
“We were hoping to win all games that we played. I thought Sri Lanka tested us at certain stages but we stuck to our guns pretty well, certainly in the last two games we set pretty high standards. The conditions have been difficult, I guess, from the batting perspective, very different from back home, but the last couple of games we have adjusted very well, we came with our plans and stuck to them,” Lanning said.
Australia had arrived in Sri Lanka needing just one win to qualify for the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017. And Lanning’s side achieved it in style when it wrapped up the first match in Dambulla last Tuesday by 78 runs. It then won the two Colombo ODIs by nine wickets and 137 runs.
Australia now sits pretty on 30 points from 18 games, 10 points more than its nearest rival the West Indies, which, like the remaining six sides in the competition, has played three less matches. England is third with 19 points, followed by New Zealand (16), South Africa (15), India (13), Pakistan (eight) and Sri Lanka (five). The top four sides from the ICC Women’s Championship will automatically qualify for the ICC Women’s World Cup 2017 while the bottom four sides will get a final chance of qualification through the ICC Women’s World Cup Qualifier in February 2017.
Lanning said the team was preparing for the different challenges in England next year.
“We are going to every game trying to improve and be better and we want to win every game. We have got a World Cup in July that we need to be ready for and play really good cricket, so it’s important we play every game the way we want to and also try on work on things to get better.
The conditions will be different in England. The key is in being aggressive and to take the game on as much as we can. Wickets are very important in ODI cricket. I think we are in a really good spot but have areas to improve,” Lanning said.
Sri Lanka captain Chamari Atapattu said they had been hoping to do better but hoped to learn from the series.
“We are not satisfied with our performances in this series. We couldn’t complete our tasks individually and were unable to follow our plans. This is a big experience - playing a series against Australia - and we hope to learn from it.
“The Australia players applied themselves very well and came up with good individual performances. As for our team, we had some satisfaction in taking several wickets in the first match but we seemed to lose focus in the remaining matches,” Atapattu said.
Australia’s dominance in the series saw some gains for both its batsmen and bowlers.
Left-hander batter Nicole Bolton, who was the pick of the batters with 212 runs and finished as the only centurion of the IWC series with scores of 64, 35 and 113, moved up three slots to 18th position in the MRF Tyres ICC ODI Women’s Player rankings.
Bolton’s opening partner Elyse Villani’s 115 runs in the three matches enabled her to re-enter the rankings at 52nd position while top-ranked Lanning, fourth-ranked Ellyse Perry and sixth-ranked Alex Blackwell retained their positions with reasonably good showings.
Leg-spinner Kristen Beams, who was the most successful bowler in the series with 10 wickets and conceded just 61 runs in three matches, moved up 16 places to 28th rank in the rankings for bowlers. Beams had hauls of 4-15 in the first match and 4-26 in the third.
Left-arm spinner Jess Jonassen’s four wickets took her up two places to seventh position while pace bowler Holly Ferling’s seven wickets helped her move up 10 places to 52nd rank.
For Sri Lanka, opener Prasadani Weerakkody moved up four slots to 26th position while captain Chamara Atapattu made up for her lack of big contributions with the bat by taking five wickets with her medium-pace bowling that helped her move up 17 ranks to 76th position.
Upcoming ICC Women’s Championship matches:
8-13 October – South Africa v New Zealand in South Africa
14-19 October – West Indies v England in West Indies
ICC Women’s Championship 2014-16
Teams
|
P
|
W
|
L
|
Tie
|
N/R
|
Points
|
NRR
|
Australia
|
18
|
15
|
3
|
0
|
0
|
30
|
+0.994
|
West Indies
|
15
|
10
|
5
|
0
|
0
|
20
|
+0.497
|
England
|
15
|
9
|
5
|
0
|
1
|
19
|
+0.754
|
New Zealand
|
15
|
8
|
7
|
0
|
0
|
16
|
+0.232
|
South Africa
|
15
|
7
|
7
|
0
|
1
|
15
|
-0.069
|
India
|
15
|
6
|
8
|
0
|
1
|
13
|
+0.008
|
Pakistan
|
15
|
4
|
11
|
0
|
0
|
8
|
-1.030
|
Sri Lanka
|
18
|
2
|
15
|
0
|
1
|
5
|
-1.339
|
Note
– two points for a win, no point for a loss and one point for a no-result
MRF Tyres ICC Women’s Player
Rankings (as of 26 September 2016, after the Sri Lanka-Australia ODI series)
Batters
(top 10)
Rank
(+/-)
Player
Team Pts
Avge Highest Rating
1 ( -
) Meg
Lanning
Aus
820 49.57 834 v NZ
at Bay Oval 2016
2 ( -
) Suzie
Bates
NZ 775!
40.50 775 v Aus at Bay Oval 2016
3 ( -
) Mithali
Raj
Ind 722
49.54 839 v Aus at Baroda Vadodar 2004
4 ( -
) Ellyse
Perry
Aus
693 42.83 725 v NZ
at Bay Oval 2016
5 ( -
) Stafanie Taylor
WI
690 45.63 765 v Ind
at St Kitts (WP) 2012
6 ( -
) Alex Blackwell
Aus
650 35.00 683 v Ind
at Canberra 2008
7 ( -
) Sarah
Taylor
Eng
640 39.76 803 v Aus
at Chelmsford 2009
8 ( -
) H. Kaur
Ind 630
35.57 679 v SA at Bangalore 2014
9 ( -
) Deandra Dottin
WI
583 28.28 650 v NZ at
Kingston 2013
10 ( -
) A. Satterthwaite
NZ
577 29.07 653 v Aus
at Sydney 2012
Other
selected rankings
Rank
(+/-)
Player
Team Pts
Avge Highest Rating
18
(+3) Nicole
Bolton
Aus 495*!
44.09 495 v SL at Colombo (RPS) 2016
26
(+4) P.Weerakkody
SL
408*! 18.53 408 v Aus at Colombo (RPS) 2016
Bowlers
(top 10)
Rank
(+/-)
Player
Team Pts
Avge Eco Highest
Rating
1 ( -
) Jhulan Goswami
Ind
730 21.78 3.18
796 v Eng at Chennai 2007
2 ( -
) Katherine Brunt
Eng
658 22.59 3.36
796 v Ind at Mumbai 2013
3 ( -
) A. Mohammed
WI
638 17.99 3.26
704 v Aus at Sydney 2014
4
(+1) Stafanie Taylor
WI
606 18.72 3.10
768 v NZ at Kingston 2013
5
(-1) Ellyse Perry
Aus
588 24.24
4.28 698 v Ind at Mumbai 2012
6 ( -
) Shibnam Ismail
SA
567 19.27 3.53
641 v Eng at Johannesburg 2016
7
(+2) Jess
Jonassen
Aus 546*! 20.80
4.10 546 v SL at Colombo (RPS) 2016
8
(-1) Jenny
Gunn
Eng 543
27.80
3.78 693 v Ind at Scarborough 2014
9
(-1) Anya Shrubsole
Eng 539*!
25.64 4.14 539 v Pak at Taunton
2016
10 ( -
) Morna
Nielsen
NZ 532*
26.88 3.68 546 v Ind at
Bangalore 2015
Other
selected rankings
Rank
(+/-) Player
Team Pts
Avge
Eco Highest Rating
28
(+16)
Kristen Beams
Aus 413*!
19.60 3.45 413 v SL at Colombo
(RPS) 2016
40
(+10)
I. Ranaweera
SL
341* 27.62 4.35
349 v Aus at Colombo (RPS) 2016
46
(+3) E. Kaushalya
SL
323* 28.20
4.19 377 v WI at Dambulla 2013
52
(+10)
Holly Ferling
Aus 311*!
20.87 4.36 311 v SL at Colombo
(RPS) 2016
All-rounders (top five)
Rank
(+/-)
Player
Team Pts
Highest Rating
1
(+1) Stafanie Taylor
WI
418 559 v NZ at Kingston 2013
2
(-1) Ellyse
Perry
Aus
407 446 v NZ at Bay Oval 2016
3
( -
) Suzie Bates
NZ
336! 336 v Aus at Bay Oval 2016
4
( -
) Jhulan Goswami
Ind
288 308 v Aus at Canberra 2016
5
( -
) Sophie
Devine
NZ
245! 245 v Aus at Bay Oval 2016
MD
26/IX/16
26/IX/16
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