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Australia’s all-conquering generation of women’s cricketers have one last World Cup feat to tick off, setting their sights on defying almost 40 years of history to win back-to-back one-day international (ODI) tournaments.
Alyssa Healy’s side will start their campaign against New Zealand in Indore, India on Wednesday, in a tournament players still consider the holy grail of the sport.
Not since Australia in 1978, 1982 and 1988 has a team gone back-to-back, with the Aussies having won every second tournament since then.
This World Cup will almost certainly be the last 50-over one for Healy, who is yet to set a retirement date but makes no secret of the fact she regularly weighs it up.
Ellyse Perry’s future is less clear, with hopes of playing on until at least 2028, but veteran seamer Megan Schutt has signalled her retirement in the next 12 months.
The nature of Australia’s dominance this century means it’s hard to define when one golden era ends and another one will start.
But of the squad that won back the trophy the last time the tournament was in India in 2013, only Healy, Perry and Schutt remain.
Ashleigh Gardner and Beth Mooney had joined the group by the 2017 tournament in England, while the likes of Meg Lanning and Rachael Haynes have retired since the last edition in 2022 (held in New Zealand and postponed from 2021 because of the COVID-19 pandemic).
And for almost all those household names, this will be the last chance to become back-to-back winners given the four-year time span between tournaments.
“Hopefully we can break that stat,” Schutt said.
“It definitely can [become a big motivating factor]. I don’t think we’d be doing it for the stat, it wouldn’t be something on our whiteboard before a game.
“But little things like that are great because you’re creating history.”
Australia regularly enter global tournaments as favourites and have won seven of the 12 ODI events (the first tournament was in England in 1973).
But they were narrowly beaten in the final in 2000 in England, edged out in Australia in 2009 and shocked in the 2017 semi-final when victim to a Harmanpreet Kaur assault for India.
“It just shows how hard it is to win World Cups,” vice-captain Tahlia McGrath said.
“The tournament play is at times very unpredictable. You can’t have an off game and the finals are so clutch.
“This tournament’s still the pinnacle of all of them, the one that you want to win. Being reigning champs, we really want to go back-to-back.
“It’s so hard to do that.”
India again loom as Australia’s biggest threat, having challenged them in a lead-in series and holding the advantage of home conditions for the finals.
Australia have vowed to take a more aggressive approach into the tournament, following white-ball defeats to England in the 2023 Ashes.
“It’s not so much about the captaincy, or ticking one more box,” Healy said.
“It’s like I want to win a World Cup for Australia, and no one has gone back-to-back, which is a real motivator.
“But I just want to see the team playing really well and enjoying themselves, and I know if we do that, then we’re a real big chance of holding the trophy up.”
