‘Part coach, part fan’ – Mott hails Lanning’s masterclass
Australia Women coach Matthew Mott was effusive in his praise for skipper Meg Lanning, after she hit an unbeaten 133 against England, obliterating her own record for the highest score in a Women’s T20 international.
“I don’t think words will really do it justice,” Mott said, after Lanning starred in Australia’s 93-run win. “The word masterclass comes out, but that innings – I just thought it was a fantastic thing for people to watch. I was part coach, part fan through that innings.”
✅ The highest ever women's T20I score
✅ Australia's highest T20I total
✅ England's heaviest T20I defeat‘Fortress Chelmsford’ wasn’t just breached; it was blown to smithereens.https://t.co/uu0jfIqcF1
— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) July 26, 2019
Lanning, who later admitted to have hit the ball “as well as I have for a long time”, finished with 17 fours and seven sixes in her 63-ball carnage.
“I can’t think of any better [innings], as a T20 innings to dominate a good bowling attack,” Mott said. “I don’t think England bowled that badly. It was a great wicket and a fast outfield, but those shots would find the boundary on most fields.”
Initially playing second fiddle to opener Beth Mooney, Lanning changed gears upon reaching her fifty, for the 13th time in T20Is. She repeatedly hoicked the English bowlers towards midwicket, interspersing it with her trademark cuts through backward point.
By the time she was done, Australia had racked up 226. Lanning’s previous highest was 126, against Ireland in 2014, which was recently equalled by Netherlands’ Sterre Kalis.
England succumbed to a 93-run loss, their biggest in T2oI cricket
“Meg is something really different, she plays balls most players can’t play behind point,” Mott said. “She generates pace. When you get people from the men’s team come and watch her play, they sit in awe of the way she can put pace on the ball behind the wicket.”
Having managed just two 50-plus scores in five international innings in the series before the Chelmsford T20I, Lanning shrugged off a quiet Ashes campaign to hand her side an unassailable 10-2 lead with two games to go.
“She’s incredibly hard on herself,” Mott said. “After all that, the only thing she’ll be worrying about is her misfield in the last over. That’s why she’s so good, her standards are so high.”
