Australia v South Africa Women’s T20 World Cup Report Card
Featuring The Gap™, non-existent angles, Amazon Prime shows and shielding Laura Wolvaardt
The Gap™
Grade: D
There was lots of World Cup buzz going around heading into this tournament. And why not? Because, as everybody once again agreed, The Gap™ between Australia and the rest of the field was closing.
Look. It’s a lovely thought. It may even be a somewhat true one. The Australian women, right now, don’t hold either the ODI or T20 World Cup. And, obviously, it’s beyond tedious from every other nation’s perspective to go into a tournament talking up Australia as a force to be reckoned with. That’s a take so cold that Superman could build a Fortress of Solitude there.
So before every women’s World Cup - and especially this one that seems to be trending everywhere (even the US has World Cup fever!) - pre-match chatter from journalists inevitably focuses elsewhere. Sure, there’s lip service paid to the shadow that Australia casts (‘and obviously Australia will be a threat’), but it’s an afterthought. And focus soon turns to whichever nation the journalist in question happens to think has a ‘sneaky chance of surprising a few people’ (inevitably the nation in which the journalist resides).
Like I said, this is all perfectly understandable. And, obviously, it’s as smug as hell to mock it. And, what’s worse, that very smugness just makes those other nations want to discount Australia even more. I get all that.
But it does make things very funny indeed when Australia then comes along and monsters some poor side (in this case, South Africa) in their very first game.
Non-Existent Angles
Grade: C
Sophie Molineux won the toss and elected to bat. She then swiftly clarified that she wouldn’t be batting. No, she’d keep sliding down the batting order until she eventually found herself at eleven. But, in general, as a concept, Australia would bat.
Phoebe Litchfield was the first one to live up to her captain’s promise. She came to the wicket after Georgia Voll was dismissed in the first over - perhaps mistakenly thinking she was part of the Australian men’s white ball squad - and started doing her usual frenetic thing. Up and down the crease, hitting in angles that barely exist (eleventeen degrees north by east west?), making a thundering nuisance of herself as she raced to 50 (24).
At the other end, Ellyse Perry was batting in her usual manner. Sensibly, forcefully, and in a helmet that’s been carbon-dated to the desaturation era. The two recovered from 2/24 after 3.5 overs to 2/61 after 6.4 overs, and then after Litchfield and Ash Gardner both went in a handful of deliveries, Perry just shrugged and performed a similar recovery alongside Georgia Wareham.
Look, she’s old. But she’s reliable. Like a Nokia 3310.
Amazon Prime Shows
Grade: F
And so it went. In between Amazon Prime ads for a seemingly infinite number of generic thriller television shows and movies, Australia stuck almost precisely at 8.5 runs an over for their entire innings.
Now, I don’t know whether the Amazon Prime ads are personalised or not. I guess it’s possible. Maybe none of these shows they were thrusting at me in between overs even exist and if I were to inexplicably click on one of them, they’d have to generate them on the fly with just-in-time AI technology. Who can say.
In fact, that’s surely what they’re doing, right? I know I was watching this game in the small hours of the morning and therefore wasn’t paying super close attention to every show/movie advertised. But they were so blandly predictable and previously unheard of, that they must currently only exist in programmatically generated trailers for stories in which a grim/disgraced/snarky detective/profiler/forensic accountant must investigate/infiltrate/invoice a drug ring/serial killer/Ponzi scheme in a city that never sleeps/a small town with secrets/somewhere where it always rains.
Very confusing stuff. Not quite as confusing though as when Perry reviewed a ball for being an above the waist full toss. The ball-tracking informed her that the trajectory placed the delivery just below her waist at the crease, then showed a graphic that seemed to suggest that they’d measured her waist height while she was in stilettos.
Come on, Pez. Think before you show up to these waist-measuring days!
Shielding Laura Wolvaardt
Grade: F
None of it mattered. Australia reached 8/172 from their twenty overs, almost precisely the 8.5 runs per over they’d been going along at their entire innings. Mathematics, FTW!
Molineux celebrated her success at not having to bat in the innings by opening the bowling instead and taking the wicket of Sune Luus in her first over.
South Africa, for their part, inexplicably decided to shield their other opener, captain and best batter (these are all Laura Wolvaardt) from the strike, letting her face about eleven balls in the power play for some reason.
As tactics went, it wasn’t a great one. The required run rate soon grew out of control, as Australia sent four spinners into action, like it was a ceiling fan convention or something. Sure, one of those spinners, Ash Gardner chose to drop an outfield catch over the rope for some reason, but even that wasn’t enough to get South Africa anywhere near Australia’s total. They spluttered to their doom, bowled out for 107 in 16.4 overs.
Still, a show of mad respect for The Hundred. You have to give them that.