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London: The Australian team were the last to leave England’s most hallowed cricket ground on Sunday night after they won the Women’s T20 World Cup at Lord’s.
The crowd had gone home and the staff were packing up, but the Australian women wanted to savour their victory after more than three weeks of intense competition – including their crushing defeat of the English team in the final.
Family and friends joined the players in the empty ground – owning Lord’s until they had to leave – and then celebrated into the night.
The captain, Sophie Molineux, initially told reporters her plan was to brush her teeth and get to bed early, but she admitted things did not work out that way.
“It was quite late, it was really cool,” Molineux told this masthead in London.
“We had our family and friends come in and just share some time in the change room together, and then we ended up going out into the ground and we took it all in from the ground as well.
“So it was a little bit later than ‘teeth and bed’ before eight, but it was a great night.”
The team had a lot to celebrate. Australia did not just win the World Cup, they demonstrated total mastery over the English side by winning the final by seven wickets. A week earlier, they defeated the West Indies by eight wickets. Before that, they beat India by six wickets.
One day after the win, the team gathered at a pub in the north London district of Primrose Hill to relax over drinks at the rear of the venue on a quiet Monday lunchtime.
One local spotted the medals around the necks of the cricketers as they walked in. “Are you the Australians who beat England? Shame on you!” she joked. Then she congratulated them.
While the team has played Lord’s before, winning a final there was a highlight even for this record-breaking side. Molineux never assumed an easy win.
“They’ve got a lot of depth, and they’ve got a lot of players that can win a game off their own bat,” she said.
“I felt like we were in control of the bowling innings, and 150 was a really good score to keep them to. We bowled really well, and they never really got away from us, so we felt in control.”
Then Beth Mooney and Phoebe Litchfield dominated in the run chase.
“It was just clinical,” she said.
The team will not have long to bask in the glory of their win. Molineux, 28, is only taking two weeks off before she heads to her Southampton team, the Southern Brave, to resume the season in The Hundred, the league that uses the 100-ball format.
After that, she will go home to Bairnsdale in Victoria to see friends and family. Then the busy spring and summer will begin with the Women’s Big Bash League from the end of October.
Head coach Shelley Nitschke is looking at what comes next, including the Champions Trophy in Sri Lanka early next year and, further off, the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 2028.
“It’s about using some of the momentum that we have at this World Cup. We’ve been playing a really good style of cricket,” she said.
The team will be playing ODIs in Sri Lanka over the Australian summer to prepare for the Champions Trophy in February, which will be limited to the world’s top six teams.
With all that ahead, the team appeared to enjoy a low-key lunch at the London pub rather than a wild celebration.
Did anyone stay out all night?
“I didn’t, so I don’t know,” laughed Nitschke.
“To be fair, on the night after the game everyone is pretty tired. It’s been a big campaign. And once you get to the end, it hits them how fatigued they probably are.”
The Australian women’s cricket team performed so well that they might justifiably feel their success should be getting more attention back home.
Molineux said the team knew that the FIFA World Cup dominated sport coverage while the women were winning in the UK.
“At the same time, we’ve gone about our business over here and done the job,” she said.
“We’ve also felt a lot of support and love from back home as well.
“We’ve got a massive summer of cricket coming up. The WBBL schedules have just been released, as there’s so much cricket to be watched back home.
“So, hopefully, winning this and being able to take a trophy home can bring some momentum. And it’ll be nice to get home and celebrate with Aussies.”
They’ll be able to remind people back home that there was another world cup being played the other day. And the Australians won it.
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