By News18,Rudransh Khurana
Copyright news18
Australia’s star all-rounder Ash Gardner has attributed her side’s continued dominance in white-ball cricket to their unmatchable batting depth of all-rounders, which allows them to bat with virtually no tail without compromising on bowling resources.
She was speaking after Australia thrashed New Zealand by 89 runs in their 2025 Women’s World Cup opener in Indore. The Aussies seemed in trouble in the first half of their first innings, being reduced to 128/5 at one stage but Gardner held the innings together with a stellar 115 off 83 balls.
She found support in Tahlia McGrath, Sophie Molineux, and Kim Garth, but remarkably, the Aussies never looked like slowing down their run-rate. They eventually ended up with 326 runs, which was defended ruthlessly despite a solid century from Sophie Devine.
“Best thing about this side is we bat all the way down and we had spoken about if there were nerves…. But I have confidence in our lower order that they can do the job,” Gardner said after the match. “If you look at a Kim Garth today, she’s certainly not a No 9. She has an amazing technique and she can score all around the ground. Conversation with them was playing your strokes, don’t go into a shell. Because that would naturally put pressure on me. She took pressure off me straight away. To bat with the lower order was actually really fun. Kim’s 40-odd runs (38 off 37) was the difference in the end. That pushed us beyond the 300-run mark,” she added.
Australia now travel to Sri Lanka to take on the co-hosts in Colombo. Gardner said that it’ll be an opportunity for Australia to show the other big skill they have — adaptability.
“What this team really knows well is to adapt. We play in a lot of different places around the world. We need to adapt. In the first practice session we will get a gist of what’s gonna happen in the middle. But we adapt. We’ve got some smart cricketers within our side. And we make sure we adapt to different challenges thrown at us. Sri Lanka will throw a different challenge at us. Obviously there’s gonna be lot of spin, so there’s no denying that. We are well equipped, we have planned well. We pride ourselves on showing all the hard work we have done,” Gardner added
