Meg Lanning has announced her retirement. (Photo: Australian Women's Cricket Team/Twitter)
The Women’s World Cup might be right around the corner but Australian captain Meg Lanning says Australia is focused on retaining the Ashes.
Following the end of the Women’s Ashes this Tuesday, both England and Australia will prepare for the World Cup, which kicks off in early March.
They’ll both play each other in the first match in Hamilton on March 5th, with England coming in as reigning champions and Australia making a semi-final appearance last time in 2017.
Despite the World Cup being around the corner, Lanning told media today that Australia is fully focused on winning the Women’s Ashes.
Following the thrilling draw in the Test match in Canberra, Australia holds a slender lead in the multi-format Women’s Ashes series 6-4 as the one-day international leg of the series kicks off at Manuka Oval tomorrow.
Australia can retain the Women’s Ashes if they win the first ODI tomorrow, while England needs to win all three games to snatch the Women’s Ashes out of Australia’s hands for the first time in eight years.
Lanning said while the team has an eye firmly on the World Cup, after the squad was named last week, they remain focused on the task at hand. Finishing off the Women’s Ashes series strongly.
“The World Cup will take care of itself afterwards, we don’t want to think too far ahead because as soon as we do that we’ll come crashing down pretty quick,” Lanning said.
“We’re very focused on tomorrow, it’s a massive game, we know England are going to come out pretty hard at us so we’ve got to be ready for that and push back as best we can.”
Australia can retain the Women’s Ashes if they win the first ODI tomorrow, while England needs to win all three games to snatch the Women’s Ashes out of Australia’s hands for the first time in eight years.
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Whilst they’ll be looking to pick their strongest team in all three upcoming games, Lanning said managing players will be key heading into the World Cup.
“It’s a matter of picking our best team and making sure we’re managing the young fast bowlers as well,” she said.
“We’ve got these three ODIs that we want to win, but also the World Cup coming up as well so we need to make sure we manage that.”
However, Lanning confirmed that star pace bowler Megan Schutt would return to the lineup after missing the Test, with the other fast bowling spots still to be decided.
“We do still have until two o’clock tomorrow to wait and see how the fast bowlers pull up so we’ll wait until that happens tomorrow before we make a call, but Shooter will definitely come back.”
And whilst they’ve taken their time to recover from the test, Lanning said Australia is now fully into ODI mode heading into tomorrow’s match.
“Both sides fought extremely hard and it turned out to be one of the best test matches ever,” she said.
“It was exciting to be a part of, but as of today we’ve switched into one-day mode and understand how important these games are.”
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