I probably didn’t expect to get that much spin: Alana King

Two wickets, four maidens and extracting maximum turn from a flat surface to finish with an economy rate of 1.80 — Alana King put in a star turn with the ball to help restrict Bangladesh to a below-par total, one that Australia chased down with ease on Thursday night.

Speaking after the defending champion sealed its spot in the semifinals, King admitted that she was surprised by how the pitch behaved.

“I probably didn’t expect to get that much spin, but once you do, it’s just adjusting your plans, ever so slightly,” she said.

King also shed light on the Aussies’ plan to stifle an already underperforming Bangladeshi batting unit.

“I kept my plan pretty simple. We wanted to be really disciplined in the length and force them to play a shot that they’re not comfortable with. With the bit of spin and bounce in this wicket, I was just trying to extract as much as I could. We know that Bangladesh are quite good against spin, they play quite square of the wicket, so it was about just challenging them on the front foot,” she explained.

The 29-year-old also stated that Australia, after an uncharacteristically sloppy fielding performance, will need to do better ahead of clashes with England and South Africa.

“We pride ourselves on our fielding. It is something that we will talk about and reflect on. We’ve got two pretty big games coming up, so we know every chance that goes up, we’ll need to grab as much as we can,” she said.