Auckland, Mar 19 (IANS): Australia skipper Meg Lanning on Saturday said her group is really excited to be in the semi-finals of the ongoing ICC Women's Cricket World Cup. She added that winning from different situations in the league stage of the World Cup is serving as their perfect preparation for the semi-finals.
Lanning anchored her side's successful chase of 278 against India at Eden Park. Though Lanning fell for 97, she had done the job, helping Australia acing the highest successful chase in the history on Women's Cricket World Cups and become the first team to qualify for the semi-finals. The six-wicket win also meant that Australia maintained their pole position in the points table with five out of five wins.
"I think as a group, w're really excited. World Cups are very difficult to play in, we've seen there's been a lot of upsets throughout this tournament already, so every game is a challenge. It's unique each game and you need to make sure you're adapting. We've won differently every time which I think is really important because you need to put yourself in different positions to make sure that when you do get to the semis, you're prepped and ready to go," said Lanning in the post-match virtual press conference.
Lanning stated that her team will enjoy the win against India to the fullest before focusing on their last two matches against South Africa and Bangladesh. "We'll enjoy this win, it's a win against an exceptional team who are very dangerous. You need to make sure to take a moment to take it all in and enjoy wins like this because they're all very difficult. We'll refocus when we need to, but it is certainly a very happy changing room tonight."
Lanning missed out on what could have been her 15th ODI century when she fell on 97. While admitting her sadness over not reaching the century, she expressed her full faith in Tahlia McGrath and Beth Mooney to finish off the chase, which they did with three balls to spare.
"We were pretty confident, to be honest. We had Moons there who was set and Tahlia McGrath, she's very cool under pressure. We'd expect to be able to get those runs on a really good batting wicket."
"It was frustrating for me to get out, I would have loved to be there just to finish off the game and not put that little bit of unnecessary pressure on Tahlia and Moons. Overall that was a pretty clinical chase, I thought (Alyssa) Healy and (Rachael) Haynes set it up nicely at the top there, got us ahead of the rate and that just allowed the new batters to come in to settle themselves in and build partnerships."