Melbourne: Australia Women’s cricket captain Meg Lanning on Saturday highlighted the importance of Ashes (series between England and Australia) and said she was extremely jealous on missing out on the series last time.
“I was really jealous sitting on the sidelines during that last series, it’s a really great thing to be a part of,” cricket.com.au quoted Lanning as saying.
No women cricketer has more ODI centuries than Lanning, but she is yet to pass the score of fifty in Test format. She has played three Test matches in her career so far and her highest score till date is 48.
“We want to play good cricket no matter what format it is and it is harder in Test matches because we just don’t play it enough to really understand what our strengths and weaknesses are,” Lanning said.
“But at the end of the day, I think as long as we stick to the style of play that has treated us well (in all formats) over the last 18 months, that’s the best way to approach it. I don’t think you can change too much. We still want to play a good brand of cricket and continue to move the game forward as much as we can,” she added.
Lanning was exceptional for Australia in the 2015 Ashes campaign. Australia defeated England on their home soil for the first time since 2001.
She scored knocks of 104 and 85 respectively to give Australia early lead in the series, and the team sealed the series in the penultimate T20I in Hove.
“That game at Hove, where we actually won the Ashes, nobody could think could happen, that’s one of the best game’s I’ve been a part of. It just sort of showed that we had as a group and the special nature of it,” Lanning said.
The Ashes begins on 2 July when Australia takes on England in the first ODI at Leicester.
[source_without_link]ANI[/source_without_link]