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ICC WOMEN'S WORLD T20


March 2, 2020


Meg Lanning

Georgia Wareham


Melbourne, New South Wales, New South Wales

Australia - 155/5, New Zealand - 151/7

Q. Meg, how worried were you at any point during that game?
MEG LANNING: Certainly nice to have a win against a really good team. I thought it was a really good performance from us. I think we started well. We were able to sort of calm the situation down early, with Beth Mooney playing a really good hand for us.

We were under-pumping the ball a little bit but I thought we dealt with it extremely well. And to get over the line against a really good New Zealand team, relief is a good word. Our first challenge of this tournament was to get through the group stage. And now that we've done that it is certainly a nice feeling. But looking forward to what the next few days hold as well.

Q. Obviously the big thing everyone wants to know is how is Elysse Perry. What can you tell us about her?
MEG LANNING: I can't tell you much. We're not sure at the moment. It's a hamstring but what the extent of it is we're not sure. So really unfortunate for her to have to go off. She's a really tough player. And we'll just have to see what pans out over the next few days.

Q. You decide not to bowl Annabel. Was there reasons for that?
MEG LANNING: Not really. It just didn't sort of pan out that way. We sort of felt like spin was a good option. Obviously with Georgia bowling so well as well. She bowled four overs. So it was just sort of situational; it wasn't our plan going in. She was always there if we needed, but sort of just went to other bowlers today.

Q. Meg, I think it's been a little while since you've come in at 3 at the fall of Alyssa's wicket. How about that and the tempo that was building steadily over the innings?
MEG LANNING: That was a decision we made for this game purely based on matchups and how New Zealand had bowled throughout their innings in other games. And we felt I was a better matchup against sort of the bowlers in the first six.

It worked pretty well today, I think. But Ash Gardner can do just as good a job depending on the situation. We'll assess, depending on our next point for the next game. It might happen again; it might be different. We'll have to see.

Q. Obviously Georgia bowled very well today, but the increasing role of spin over the tournament it seems -- obviously you've lost Tayla and there's obviously a cloud over Ellyse. But the pitches as well, it seems to be the spinners have played a much bigger role in this tournament than maybe people might have expected?
MEG LANNING: Perhaps. Yeah, I think as the tournament goes on, obviously the wickets are played on a lot more and they've become a little bit slower and lower. And I guess pace off the ball makes I get more difficult for the batters to create it.

So that seemed to work for us today. And I guess it just depends on where you play in the SCG. I guess we're not really sure what we're going to get. There have been no games there so far. We'll have to look at it, but I think spin has played a massive role across can T20 cricket for a long time now, and I guess when you are under the pump, and as batters you've got to force the issue a bit. It is a little bit more difficult to di it against a slower the pace.

Q. Georgia, you've been in and out of the side of late. Did you sort of cast your mind back to the West Indies tour in September, when you came on to bowl today in terms of the things you can do well and have done well for Australia?
GEORGIA WAREHAM: Yeah, I think it's probably something I'll probably look back on and see, how I did things during that tournament and what worked for me. And I guess implementing those little things in today kind of helped out. But I guess knowing that I guess I can play that sort of role in the team, because I guess I did that in the last World Cup, gives me a bit of confidence and it definitely sort of helped out today.

Q. What was the conversation like around the LBW, pretty straight but a bit of quite being --
GEORGIA WAREHAM: I was sort of confident that it was out. But, yeah, I think Mitch had a pretty big say in, usually have --

MEG LANNING: Talking about maybe being too high. As soon as we sort of felt she hadn't hit it, it was worth the gamble I guess and it paid off which was nice.

Q. Georgia, it looked like you and Mitch sort of patted each other on the back after the Devine/Priest over. What was the plan there?
GEORGIA WAREHAM: It was really something that's been in the works for a little bit. I've sort of changed around my strategy going into, I guess, T20 cricket.

But, yeah, just planning around just, the batter coming at me, chucking one wide. And it worked out for me today, which was quite good. But it's been tough going -- it's finally good to get one.

Q. Tell us a bit about your love for photography, videography, video editing; you edit your own stuff. What are the most adventurous things that you've done with Photoshop and Premier Pro?
GEORGIA WAREHAM: I have no idea how to use Photoshop. I don't use Premier Pro. But being in the West Indies, it's a pretty cool spot to get some footage and stuff like that. I'm no professional at it. But it is sort of something that I like to do in my downtime.

Q. Meg, you mentioned relief. Could you sort of expand on that a little bit further given this tournament is one where you've been under a lot of scrutiny, a lot of expectation, not just for yourself, but for the team as well, given it was a hard passage to get there particularly today?
MEG LANNING: Yeah, I think especially over the last week or so we've probably adjusted to that extra scrutiny and things that are happening and that's not to say we weren't prepared.

I think just once you're actually in the middle of it, you don't really know what it's going to be like until you're actually there. And it probably took us a little bit to adjust. But we were able to scrape through with that win against Sri Lanka. And then really from then I've sensed a different group and a really calm group. And I thought today's performance was the best of the tournament so far. We still can get better. But that was how we want to play our cricket. And I thought we were able to really build the base there and then deliver in the back end.

So I've said this before but our first goal was to get out of the group stage. And we didn't think that that was going to be easy. I guess we've always lost a group stage game. It just happened to be the first one this time around and that probably put us under the pump more so than we've been in other tournaments.

We've had to do it slightly differently. But I think it's put us in a really good position heading into the semifinals to be able to come through those sort of down moments, I guess, early in the tournament to where we are now. I don't think we could be better placed.

Q. How do you sort of manage that then with obviously the potential loss of Ellyse as well? You get through that tough time, and then you get to where you want to be and you won't have Ellyse. How do you sort of address that more from a talking-to-the-team perspective, as opposed to who comes in when you saw when she walked off sort of the collective shoulders sort of slump a little bit, so you have to really manage that?
MEG LANNING: Yeah, she's obviously been a massive part of our squad and team for a long time and you can't replace her.

But we've got 15 players here who can do a job and you need a squad to win a World Cup. You can't rely on one or two players and the same 11 each game. And we're going to have to use our depth we've got.

We've said we've got a lot of depth. And I believe that. And we're just going to have to use it. And that's just the reality of it. Unfortunately, in elite sport, you get injuries and things like that. And unfortunately Ellyse has an injury. We'll have to wait and see what happens with that.

But I've got full confidence that any player who comes in can play a role. And we're just going to have to get through it and play maybe slightly differently. But that's fine; you've got to adapt.

Q. How was Ellyse's demeanour just in the room just straight afterwards?
MEG LANNING: She was happy we got the win, obviously. But, yeah, probably a little bit down. And that's probably understandable given the situation. But we actually don't know a lot about it at the moment. We'll just have to see.

Q. Just there's no reserve day for the semis. Do you have any thoughts on that? Rain is forecast for Sydney. Given any thought to that?
MEG LANNING: Not really. We were just worrying about today. We knew that going in I guess there wasn't any reserve day. Hopefully the forecast changes. I've seen that happen before. And hopefully we get two really good semifinals in.

Q. Meg, probably more than ever before, we're hearing Australia talk as much about matchups. You have more left-handers than any other team. You really seem determined to use them even to the point of, in the last -- in Perth we saw promoting Carey over Perry. How much has the role of data determined all this? You said you've been working on venue matchups, player matchups. Has the role of that data analyses come in even more in the last couple of years since the last T20 World Cup? I believe Sunny in your team is the one who provides that. What's his role been like in the back room?
MEG LANNING: There's no doubt there's been a lot more time going into data and watching games. And there's so much footage now these days that you can't really hide.

And we put a lot of time into that. And we try and have a look at what the venue does and what the matchups are. But when we actually do get to the games, we go in with a plan but we also go with gut feel as well, and that's essentially what happened in Perth.

With Carey coming in instead of Perry, it was just sort of a situational sort of thing. So I think it's important that you look at the data and you're prepared.

But T20 cricket changes so quickly that you need to be able to adjust. And a lot of it is on gut instinct. And that's sort of what we want to keep doing as well, because if you just go in with one plan and you want to stick to it I think you come unstuck pretty quickly.

Q. Have you as a captain ever gone against what the data says with your gut and how has that played out? Or vice versa, has the data supported your gut?
MEG LANNING: A little bit of both. Sometimes I do things and I don't get it right. And sometimes I do something differently and it works. It's sort of hard to tell. I think captaining and T20 cricket is a lot on instinct and what you think is going to be the best matchup. But you obviously have got your ideas going in. So it's finding the balance between that. And sometimes you get it right and sometimes you don't.

Q. Any example you remember of either case?
MEG LANNING: Not off the top of my head. Sorry.

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