Australia’s All-Conquering Women’s Cricket Team Might Be The Most Dominant In All Of Sports

For a fleeting moment, England star batter Nat Sciver appeared to be conjuring the improbable with a gem of an innings rivalling Alyssa Healy’s earlier all-time knock – where she set a new mark for highest individual score in a World Cup cricket final.

But try as she might, with defending champions England set a mammoth 357 for victory, Sciver’s bold attempts were in vain against Australia’s rampaging team who deservedly won their seventh women’s World Cup. But this might be the best of the lot after an unbeaten campaign in New Zealand that culminated five years of utter dominance ever since they shockingly lost in the semi-finals at the 2017 World Cup in the UK.

It’s been a revenge act by Australia akin to the ‘Redeem Team’ when US brimmed with NBA superstars won the 2008 Olympics basketball gold medal after embarrassingly finishing with bronze four years earlier in Athens.

In the past five years, Australia have remarkably won 40 of 42 ODIs and they also memorably claimed the T20 World Cup in 2018 and on home soil in March 2020 in one of the last major international sports events staged before the Covid-19 pandemic shut down daily life.

They might just be the best cricket team ever produced by their home country. It’s easy to get swept up in blatant hyperbole after such a grand triumph but this team’s dominance is very much reminiscent of Australia men’s glory years of the late 1990s and 2000s when they won three straight World Cups.

It might be even more impressive because Australia women’s team are so far ahead of the competition that it’s hard to find a more dominant team in world sports. They are loaded in every position and have a nice blend of youth and experience. Led superbly by superstar skipper Meg Lanning, Australia have taken women’s cricket to another level through their non-stop aggression underlined by the masterstroke of inserting the aggressive Healy to the top of the order after she was a middle-order batter in 2017.

To even be a shot against this rampaging team, everything has to go right. For instance, you can’t let them dictate from the get go but, unfortunately, England captain Heather Knight probably immediately rued electing to bowl after winning the toss.

It was a gaffe evoking Sourav Ganguly’s famously similar blunder before the 2003 World Cup final when India’s faint hopes of an upset were quickly dashed by a belligerent Ricky Ponting.

On this occasion, it was Healy who destroyed England’s attack with 170 off 138 balls to leave her husband Mitchell Starc, Australia men’s pace bowler, beaming with pride on the sidelines.

Starc, who was player of the final of the 2015 World Cup in Australia, has probably been overtaken in the big game stakes by Healy who plundered England’s hopes even though the underdogs fought gamely in the chase. She was also player of the final at the T20 women’s World Cup in 2020 after smashing 75 from 39 balls to beat India.

Sciver, who finished 148 not out in a virtuoso knock, tried valiantly to make things interesting but she lacked support with legspinner Alana King striking a trio of massive blows with her prodigious turn. Like she had memorably conjured on a few occasions during the tournament, King produced perfect leg breaks to underline her enormous talent and x-factor importance to the team.

Soon enough, after enduring a mini scare through Sciver’s heroics, Australia wrapped up victory under the beautiful night sky of Christchurch. They celebrated heartily and plaudits must be given to Australia’s governing body which has seemingly lurched from one scandal to another in recent years. In many ways, Cricket Australia has become low picking fruit but it deserves enormous credit in its investment in women’s cricket. Underlining the success, the Women’s Big Bash League has gained popularity and cricketers are the highest earners for women team sports in the country.

While Australia – and England – have been pioneers of women’s cricket, countries in the subcontinent have been lagging behind. India, most notably, have a wealth of talent but investment has been slow by the all-powerful and resource rich Board of Control for Cricket in India with a mooted Women’s Indian Premier League still yet to come to fruition.

If inspiration is required, they just need to look at old sparring partner Australia whose brilliant World Cup winners celebrated long into the night knowing they might just be the most unbeatable team in all of sports.