Skipper Molineux proves doubters wrong with a stirring campaign

London Sophie Molineux wasn’t exactly the obvious choice to take over Australia’s captaincy from Alyssa Healy. There had been doubters, who felt she wasn’t even a certainty in the XI.

She proved them all wrong. She won the Australian women’s cricket a World Cup for the first time in three years. For a team brimming with generational talents, and which had been so used to winning World Cups regardless of the format, that was a long gap.

And Molineux led from the front. She was Australia’s leading wicket-taker at the T20 World Cup with 11 scalps. She would often strike early in her spell. And she marshalled her troops on the field with aplomb.

And it was a special moment for her at Lord’s. As a girl, she had told her father that she wanted to watch a Test at cricket’s most revered venue. He was there to watch her lift the World Cup.

Shortly after the final, she said the young Lucy Hamilton’s family had also flown in from Australia. “Her parents actually flew over and they booked their ticket about 48 hours ago, it took them 47 hours to get here and now they are going to turn around and go back,” smiled Molineux. “It is special for people like Lucy. She is a country kid from Bundaberg.”

Molineux said she was lucky to get the support from her players. “Captaining a couple of games and getting injured was a shock,” she said. “I suppose there were a few doubts internally and a few doubts externally. But I think what maybe I have learnt over my journey so far is that you just have to keep believing. And I am incredibly lucky that people believed in me.”

Emotional Sciver-Brunt

Earlier, Molineux’s English counterpart Nat Sciver-Brunt was a bit emotional at the press conference. She had carried her son Theo to the field for the final. “I probably won’t play in a home World Cup again, so having the opportunity to bring Theo out was really special,” she said, and cried.

Sciver-Brunt, however, made it clear that she hadn’t stopped playing World Cups. “I don’t want it to be my last World Cup,” she said. “I don’t even know when the next one is. I am living day by day at the moment…The first game in Birmingham was a real highlight, obviously not having come off too much cricket myself, to be part of that and kickstarting a brilliant tournament”.