Australia made their fifth consecutive ICC Women’s World T20 final with a dominant display against the West Indies negating a 7000-strong home crowd at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium. Australia will now challenge for a record fourth ICC Women’s World T20, where they will meet England, who beat India in the second semi-final.
After watching Australia dismantle the title defense of the Windies, most of the crowd stayed on for the second semi-final, where England made short work of India to set up the third title clash in the ICC Women’s World T20s between the Ashes rivals.
The Windies seemed to have misread the pitch, as they continued to leave out the spin and experience of Anisa Mohammed when they won the toss and chose to bowl. The surface offered both grip and turn, which demanded some high-class batting, and Alyssa Healy provided just that.
Healy top scored in the match with 46 runs even as others struggled, showing why she is the in-form batter, She paced her innings expertly, hitting over the top when the length allowed, and at other times using the pace to score square of the wicket. She crossed 200 tournament runs on the way, becoming the only player to breach that mark in this edition.
A late surge from Rachael Haynes, who scored 25 off 15 took Australia to 142 for five, a total that proved well beyond the Windies when they batted. Healy again was the first to do the damage, affecting a smart run-out to dismiss Hayley Matthews. Ellyse Perry then took two more wickets in the Powerplay to cripple the Windies run chase.
After Stafanie Taylor was fifth out in the 11th over, the Windies lost their last five wickets for 27 runs to surrender their crown, bowled out for 70.
Player of the Match, Australia’s Alyssa Healy said: “I think the last two World Cups we were a part of, we took two pretty hard defeats. It shows the maturity of the group to be able to come back together especially after England last year.
“We sat down and we watched the game together and talked through what went wrong, what we could have done better and I think it shows the maturity of this group and something that a really difficult thing to do, we sat there and did it together.”