The game against New Zealand was definitely not how we wanted to start our World Cup campaign. In saying that, there were many positives to come out of it and in hindsight it's probably best we have a loss now than in the semis where it is knock-out finals.
We fielded first and I must say it was a great effort. We spoke a lot about making our opposition feel uncomfortable and I feel the bowlers did just that. Sarah Coyte was the pick of the bowlers snagging 2 wickets and bowling plenty of dot balls. In Twenty/20 cricket, the damage of a couple dot balls strung together is often just as valuable as a wicket. The pressure causes havoc and batters must then make up for those dot balls in other overs, or take a big risk against the in-form bowler. Whilst we did this well against the New Zealand batters, we let them do the same to us.
Batting second has its advantages – you know the run rate to go at, plus you know what the pace of the game is. At the same time it has its disadvantages! Scoreboard pressure is a massive danger to teams batting second. If you don’t hit the runs per over needed, the run rate required keeps ticking up. In the latter parts of the game it increases much more significantly. You never want to take the game to the last over, so if you can keep the run rate required to around 6 an over, you feel fairly comfortable. However if the run rate climbs from 6 to 8.5 in the first 5-6 overs, the pressure starts to get to you. This brings on run out opportunities, particularly if the batters are struggling to find the boundary. This pretty much summed up our batting innings. The more dot balls New Zealand bowled, the more pressure there was, the more wickets that fell. Despite walking away with a loss, we knew exactly how to fix it. New Zealand only just beat us, and we batted poorly so it definitely showed we are not far off the mark.I might just add that our selector on tour, Julie Savage, is also a dentist. And she had her first dental duties on-tour happen right after the game. Nicole Bolton was enjoying her dinner when she chipped one of her teeth. Doctor Sav was ready to go, equipped with gloves, gauze, torches, the lot! I can announce that the procedure was a total success and Nicole was able to continue to enjoy her dinner.
We had a night time training session the following day. Despite the sun going down, the humidity was still there. All of us worked really hard in the heat, making sure come game time the following night, we were ready to go. I did a running session at the end with the other girls that would be on the bench against South Africa. Despite the disappointment you get from not being selected, you still want to make sure you are doing absolutely everything you can for the team. Fitness sessions are one of those things. We always want to make sure that we are also working just as hard as everyone else. We each did a gym session on the day of the game ensuring we pushed each other and gave it our all. The benchies have many roles on game day. During warm up, we make sure everyone gets everything they need. We hit balls to people, catch balls for their bowling, throw balls to batters and help the wicket-keeper warm up. Once that is done we pack up all the warm up equipment, race back to the change room to put on our playing uniform and we begin filling up water bottles. While many see this as an easy job, I can assure you it's not. We have to fill up the water bottles with bottled water and make sure we have enough filled with straight water and others to put hydralyte in it. Certain girls have different preferences with their hydralyte. Some like it strong and others like it weak, so we have to remember who likes what and make the water bottles accordingly. We then head back to the field where we set up, get towels and lollies ready and wait for breaks in play to run on. At the change of innings we do the warm up set up again then we refill water bottles and get set for the second innings. It’s a super busy job and without benchies, the team on the field would not be able to get all they need to perform at their optimum.
Our game against South Africa was very similar to the New Zealand clash. We bowled very well with Julie Hunter, Erin Osborne and Rene Farrell picking up a couple of wickets each. When it came to our batting innings, we appeared to struggle once again, losing a couple of quick wickets then had to rebuild once more. Finally, we had some batters who stood up and took charge against the South African bowling attack. Ellyse Perry and Jess Cameron found the boundary on many occasions to bring us back into the game and win the match. It was good to finally sing the team song and get us back on the road to the World Cup. Despite winning, we still haven’t played our best cricket which means only one thing… Our best is yet to come!
Don’t miss all the action from our Ireland clash later tonight – watch the live scoreboard on the Cricket Australia website (www.cricket.com.au)
