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Australia: Beth Mooney<\/b><\/p>\n
With a decade of international experience the 32-year-old left-hander, pictured above, has cemented herself as one of Australia\u2019s most consistent performers at the top of the order and also keeps wicket. She\u2019s been integral to Australia\u2019s dominant run so far in the World Cup, scoring an unbeaten half century in the semi-final. She scored 61 off 36 balls\u00a0 to draw level with Suzie Bates and Nat Sciver-Brunt for most career half-centuries in the tournament with eight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Australia: Annabel Sutherland<\/b><\/p>\n
Annabel Sutherland won back to back Belinda Clark awards in 2025 and 2026, the highest individual honour in Australian cricket. The pace-bowling allrounder offers power hitting lower in the order but a crucial ability to take wickets alongside bowling economy.<\/p>\n
England: Danni Wyatt-Hodge<\/b><\/p>\n
Having returned from maternity leave after her partner gave birth to their daughter in May, the England opener has scored 294 runs in this tournament prior to the final, smashing Mooney’s record for the most runs scored in a single women\u2019s T20 world cup. She is England\u2019s all-time leading T20i run scorer.<\/p>\n
England: Linsey Smith<\/b><\/p>\n
Before the tournament Smith was ranked No 1 T20 bowler in the world having fought her way back to the top since regaining her England contract in early 2024. She is key to England\u2019s early strategy in the field, her brand of spin stifling the opposition early in their innings to contain run-rates and taking key powerplay wickets. Jess Mallaghan<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nThank you for your feedback.<\/p>\n<\/footer>\n<\/details>\n<\/div>\n
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England are also a very different side \u2013 despite comprising exactly the same personnel. In the aftermath of the Ashes whitewash, Kate Cross worried that England had lost the public because of their dire performances. The fact that a capacity crowd at Lord\u2019s on Sunday will (almost) all be cheering for England is in many ways already a success story, of a team which have won back hearts and minds by the simple virtue of playing good cricket.<\/p>\n
We have one person to thank for that: England\u2019s not-so-secret weapon, one of cricket\u2019s most successful coaches in history \u2013 Charlotte Edwards. In 18 months the new head coach has transformed the culture of stagnation and lethargy that had festered under her predecessor, Jon Lewis, turning a team who dropped eight catches in one day of a Test at the MCG into one that snatches impossible chances out of the air. \u201cShe\u2019s a great driver of our energy and desire to be better as a team and try and be the best versions of ourselves,\u201d Sciver-Brunt said on Thursday after South Africa had been dispatched.<\/p>\n
Edwards\u2019s own desire to once again lift a trophy at Lord\u2019s \u2013 a feat she achieved as captain in 2009 \u2013 was evident during the semi-final at the Oval, when she came dancing out during the first drinks break to celebrate the crucial wicket of Laura Wolvaardt. \u201cIt was like she was playing again, getting around everybody, giving them hugs and stuff,\u201d Sciver-Brunt said. \u201cShe lives every ball. She\u2019s so excited and so proud of us all.\u201d<\/p>\n
England have never lost a World Cup at home. Whether they can maintain that 100% record on Sunday is far from certain \u2013 but doing it for the woman who made it possible for them to be there in the first place seems like pretty decent motivation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In February 2023, after Australia won their fourth consecutive world title, at Newlands, Beth Mooney was asked what advice she would give to a team who were trying to beat hers. She thought for a moment, then said: \u201cJust don\u2019t turn up. It\u2019s too hard. Don\u2019t bother going.\u201d There can be no better summary of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":251338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6803],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-251337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sports.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}