Posted by Commonwealth Games 2022 will be held this year in Birmingham, England in July and August. Women’s cricket will mark its debut at the games with 8 teams who’ll have an eye at the gold competing in the Twenty20 format. Cricket only featured ones before in the Commonwealth Games, it was list A men’s 50 over tournament where Steve Waugh lead Australia clinched silver back in 1998.
8 teams have been split in two groups, Group A will feature India, Barbados, Australia and Pakistan. The other, group B will feature South Africa, England, New Zealand and Sri Lanka. All the games will be played at Edgbaston, a venue where Australian women’s team have never won a game, but that’s history and this modern great team who’ve been playing exceptional cricket over the past 36 odd months will look to break records and script history on this upcoming Birmingham tour.
Australian women’s team skipper, Meg Lanning quoted,”To be there with athletes from badminton, squash, lawn bowls and a host of other sports is going to be a wonderful new experience for our players to embrace.
“We’ve all grown up watching the Commonwealth Games on TV, seeing Australian athletes inspire the rest of the country, and we’re hoping to do the same.”
AUSTRALIA’S SQUAD FOR TRI-SERIES AND COMMONWEALTH GAMES :
Meg Lanning (C), Rachael Haynes (VC), Darcie Brown, Nicola Carey, Ashleigh Gardner, Grace Harris, Alyssa Healy, Jess Jonassen, Alana King, Tahlia McGrath, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Amanda-Jade Wellington.
It’s as good a squad as it can get, simply ticks all boxes. Bench strength of the side is such that anyone who switch to match jersey wins a game for Australia, that’s what makes this Australian side the best ever women’s team to have played the game and rightly are expected to win gold, at the Games. Australia are top favorites heading into the event, despite missing out on few players with injury in Georgia Wareham, Sophie Molineux and Tayla Vlaminck who are yet on road to recovery. Heather Graham and Georgia Redmayne were part of the Australian side who travelled to New Zealand for the World Cup as reserves, but haven’t been named for the Games.
It’s an unchanged unit of players with the only change coming from the coaching set-up with head coach, Matthew Mott’s absence who’s taken up England’s white-ball coaching offer, this’ll see Australia’s women’s team assistant coach, Shelley Nitschke as interim take control of the side for the tri-series and Games.
Australia after their World Cup win early last month for the first time will regroup for a couple training camps at the National Cricket Centre in June. As part of their build up, leading into the Commonwealth Games, Australia are set to play a tri-series v Pakistan and Ireland in Northern Ireland.
T20 TRI-SERIES SCHEDULE :
July 16 : Australia v Pakistan (3PM local time)
July 17 : Australia v Ireland (3 PM local time)
July 19 : Ireland v Pakistan (3 PM local time)
July 21 : Australia v Ireland (3 PM local time)
July 23 : Australia v Pakistan (3 PM local time)
July 24 : Ireland v Pakistan (3 PM local time)
AUSTRALIA’S COMMONWEALTH GAMES SCHEDULE :
July 29 : v India (11 AM local time)
July 31 : v Barbados ( 6 PM local time)
August 2 : v Pakistan ( 11 AM local time)
*subject to qualification
August 6 : Semi-finals ( 11 AM and 6 PM local time)
August 7 : Bronze medal match and Gold medal match. (10 AM and 5 PM local time respectively)
Australia head into the tournament as favourites, a tag they’ve had for a few years now and have never failed to display the brand of cricket the tag demands. They again will play for the same glory at their debut Commonwealth Games that they’d lived at this year’s Women’s World Cup.
Bureau of sports 