Four Australians, three Englishwomen and two Indians lead XAVIER VOIGT-HILL's picks of the best players from three unforgettable weeks of the women's game taking centre stage down under
236 runs @ 39.33, strike rate 156.29, three 50s
While Australia were clear favourites to lift the trophy long before a single ball was bowled at this year's competition, the obscene pressure of the situation at hand seemed to be taking its toll on Alyssa Healy.
The hosts had warmed up for the tournament by playing eventual semi-finalists England and India in a home tri-series, but the wicketkeeper found herself struggling to even get the ball off the square.
A top score of nine accounted for 60 per cent of her runs across five miserable appearances, whereas 22 yards away opening partner – and, concerningly, fellow wicketkeeper – Beth Mooney was piling on the runs for fun and named player of the series.
But when the tournament proper opened up there was absolutely no stopping the 29-year-old, who collected her fifth winners' medal at the competition and added three more half-centuries to silence any notions of doubt in no time at all.
In a heaving MCG unlike anything the game had ever seen, she rose to the occasion as her campaign ended as it began – by slamming critical runs against India. The particularly blistering latter knock saw her join an elite club of Meg Lanning and David Warner as the only players from their country to register 2,000 runs in T20 internationals.
Not only was Healy a prolific scorer, but she was a devastating one too. Her three half-centuries at the tournament happened to be the three fastest of the 18 posted during its three-week duration, including a 30-ball effort in the final. Among players with more than one innings to their name, her astounding strike rate is the tournament's second-best, and ultimately only her closest rival Mooney could surpass her run tally.
259 runs @ 64.75, three 50s
Throughout the tournament, Beth Mooney would never be as obviously dangerous as her partner in crime.
For instance, her campaign featured two sixes to Healy's nine; Healy struck the tournament's three fastest fifties, whereas Mooney occupied the crease more than any other player and finished as the only batter to face more than 200 deliveries. Carrying her bat through the second-biggest and third-biggest totals scored across the three weeks helped this particular statistic immensely.
Despite their contrasting approaches, the nigh-inseparable partnership proved astonishingly fruitful. Their 10-an-over exploits in the final took them each past the 200 run marker only previously crossed by Nat Sciver on their way to finishing first and second on the tournament's run chart.
In tandem, they posted 352 runs across six matches, including century stands against Bangladesh and India. Only Sciver and Heather Knight posted even half that amount as a combination.
More than most players even on her side, the Queenslander is finely attuned to winning T20 matches in Australia, having picked up back-to-back WBBL titles with her Brisbane Heat side and been the top scorer on either team in both finals.
This decider demonstrated just how Healy's fireworks may naturally draw the attention, consigning Mooney to the bizarre honour of being named player of the tournament without having picked up a match gong on the way. But, in quietly tallying the runs and getting her job done from start to finish, she epitomised the anchor role that made the difference at the bitter end.
Beth Mooney's tournament tally of 259 runs is a new Women's T20 World Cup record
163 runs @ 32.60, strike rate 158.25
Shafali Verma first launched herself into headlines in November by smashing a three-decade-old Sachin Tendulkar record and becoming the youngest Indian to post a half-century on international duty, yet even that feat had nothing on what she was able to achieve upon reaching the World Cup stage.
Having turned 16 all of three days before India's first game of their Australian stay, the opener shot out of the gates right as she meant to go on, plundering 16 runs from the first over of eventual top wicket-taker Megan Schutt and ultimately finishing her powerplay blast in front of over 13,000 onlookers with 29 from 15 balls – a breathtaking cameo that would ensure India ended up just out of reach in the all-important curtain-raiser.
While chancy, as the group stage went on she would continue to go from strength to strength. A half-century would continually elude her – scores of 39 (17 balls), 46 (34) and 47 (34) followed before the final dropped her and her team right back down to earth – but the destructive talents she displayed catapulted her right to the peak of the ICC's T20 batting rankings mere months into what will surely be a storied career.
It is perhaps inevitable given the emphatic and historic nature of the final that the legacy of her tournament debut will lie in her extra cover spill of Alyssa Healy in the first over of the day, yet without her India would likely not have been anywhere near that grandest of occasions.
Verma's tournament haul was just one run shy of the combined tally of Smriti Mandhana, Jemimah Rodrigues and Harmanpreet Kaur, and one can only watch in awe as she takes to the international game in remarkable fashion.
202 runs @ 67.33, three 50s
That Nat Sciver remained the tournament's leading scorer for almost an entire week after England played their last game is a testament to quite how firmly the allrounder has established herself as a batting force in recent weeks.
No.3 may have been her home, but for all intents and purposes she was a workhorse opener, called to the crease inside six balls of all three of England's wins and scoring twice as many as any teammate in the tense opening loss to South Africa.
Hindsight offers countless factors for England to dwell upon, like whether Tammy Beaumont really was best positioned as a death hitter who was not given the opportunity to hit at the death, but it is simply a travesty that Sciver did not get a chance to extend her start into the business end of the tournament.
Never mind her fifth bowler tag, she faced more balls and scored more runs than anyone else through group action and posted as many half-centuries in four innings to start as she had done in the first five years of her T20I career, and her relentless contributions to England's performances deserved a far better finale.
193 runs @ 64.33, one 100, one 50
England's captain claims the honour of the tournament's highest individual score, having slammed an unbeaten 108 against Thailand that made her the first player from the country to register triple-figures in all three formats of the international game, regardless of gender.
Knight entered that game with England in a real pickle, having slipped up against South Africa in their opening game and opened the Thailand clash by losing the toss and then seeing both openers depart without score. Eighteen overs later, they had not lost another wicket, and the captain had the third-best score in tournament history to her name.
That innings would prove to be no fluke, with a bold 62 at the core of a win over Pakistan 48 hours later and only a lethargic attempt to regain her ground preventing lightning from striking a third time in succession against the West Indies to secure a playoff spot.
By far the most consistent of the captains on show while leading a side only recently taken over by Lisa Keightley, this contest finally saw Knight properly transfer her domestic short-form prowess into England colours.
Heather Knight and Nat Sciver were at the forefront of England's campaign
154 runs @ 38.50, 2 wickets @ 45.50
There is no side in world cricket quite as reliant on one player as Sri Lanka's women are on Chamari Atapattu, their talisman allrounder, stoic captain, fount of unmatched talent and agonisingly inconsistent spearhead.
Four games brought 154 runs, but no score north of 50; 77 per cent of her runs came from exquisite boundary shots, putting her right with Lizelle Lee and Shafali Verma in the realm of truly elite strikers, but the runs were an astounding 36 per cent of what her squad managed and yet still not plentiful enough.
It took until a dead rubber against Bangladesh and a magical farewell for Shashikala Siriwardene for the team to hold onto a game for any longer than Atapattu was directly involved in it, and a universe where she had held firm for just five overs longer to put Australia and New Zealand right to the sword is far from inconceivable.
Had Sri Lanka's astounding 10-wicket warm-up demolition of England counted as a tournament fixture – three wickets followed by an unbeaten 78 as they chased 123 in 12.3 overs – then her place here would be an utter certainty.
Instead, the opener slots in as a canny allround bonus to our middle order, narrowly outgunning the likes of young New Zealand leg-spinner and hard-hitter Amelia Kerr, White Ferns teammate and handy seamer Hayley Jensen, and South African counterpart Dane van Niekerk.
10 wickets @ 14.00, economy 6.08
Buried in amongst the ludicrous run-making at the top of the order and the tournament-leading seam action of Megan Schutt, Australia's stalwart orthodox spinner Jess Jonassen made up for a 2018 campaign spent dwelling on the bench by being the team's only player to pick up wickets in all six outings, including the game-breaking scalps of Jemimah Rodrigues and Harmanpreet Kaur in an powerplay-based final turn of 3-20.
Particularly with Ellyse Perry hampered by injury struggles in recent months, let alone the last week, Jonassen and Schutt have ended up as the real drivers of Australia's bowling attack – the pair were the only bowlers on the team to churn through 20 overs or more across the tournament, with Jonassen only one shy of bowling a complete tournament allocation while conceding barely over six runs every six balls.
The tournament rounds off an absurdly successful 12 months for the 27-year-old, who now boasts 28 wickets and an economy rate of 5.25 in 20 T20I fixtures in that time.
Between the likes of Sophie Molineux, Ashleigh Gardner, Georgia Wareham, Amanda-Jade Wellington and Molly Strano, there is no shortage of competition for spin spots in the Australian setup at the moment, but Meg Lanning throwing the ball towards the dependable Jonassen at the most pivotal of moments at the top and tail of innings – and getting consistent rewards for doing so – demonstrates just how vital her unsung role was.
8 wickets @ 6.12, economy 3.23
When England found themselves securing a semi-final spot through the dominance of their three-pronged spin attack, it was hard not to see an incredibly bright future ripping its way through the West Indies.
Mady Villiers, Sarah Glenn and Sophie Ecclestone have an average age barely above 20, yet all three offered heaps of composure and asserted themselves as long-term options for an area in which England have traditionally been sorely lacking.
Left-armer Ecclestone, of course, is the veteran member of the contingent, and will soon be celebrating four years of international cricket. For now, while England's campaign came to an abrupt end thanks to Sydney's rain, she can celebrate a rise up to the very top of the ICC's rankings as she continues to prove herself to be among the premier spinners operating in cricket today.
Ecclestone (3.23) and Sri Lanka seamer Udeshika Prabodhani (3.68) were the only two bowlers at the tournament to go at an average of under four runs per over, and each conceded only five boundaries in total across four-game stays in the competition. The Englishwoman, however, coupled this astonishing control with a strike rate almost as impressive, with eight scalps in 15.1 overs also putting her top of the bowling averages.
Superb bowling efforts from Shabnim Ismail and Poonam Yadav helped achieve group stage upsets
5 wickets @ 14.20, economy 4.68
Despite South Africa's impressive run to the tournament semi-finals – just the second time they have reached the knockout rounds across its seven editions to date – it is only Ismail who earns a place in our final composite XI.
In some ways, this is a credit to the consistency and discipline displayed across the Proteas' lineup. While it was Dane van Niekerk and Marizanne Kapp leading the way with bat and ball alike in the landmark win over England, Lizelle Lee took on a thundering role against Thailand with a century in the highest team total the tournament has ever seen.
Laura Wolvaardt and Nadine de Klerk, though very rarely called upon to make contributions, dealt with circumstances with aplomb and ensured the bitter disappointment of semi-final defeat is paired with copious 20-year-old promise and composure vital for overcoming this heartbreak in the future.
Yet it was the searing pace offering of Ismail – one of five members of the squad in Australia who had been around as far back as the 2010 edition – that stood out among the team's attack, blowing away tournament newcomers Thailand (3-8) and conceding fewer runs per over than any other frontline seamer bar Sri Lanka stalwart Udeshika Prabodhani.
Conditions at the tournament were not always most conducive to bash-the-pitch pace, despite the reputations of some of the grounds involved, but Ismail was far and away the strongest proponent of it, as a tight spell of 0-20 against Australia exemplified.
10 wickets @ 11.90, economy 5.95
Shafali Verma aside, there is undoubtedly plenty still to come from this India team. By the time Richa Ghosh was called into action as a concussion substiture in the final, Harmanpreet Kaur's XI had four teenagers and an average age somewhere in the region of 22, despite Kaur herself celebrating her 31st birthday at the MCG and leg-spinner extraordinaire Poonam Yadav clocking in at a similarly veteran 28.
There is no reason to believe any of these players will not be in contention for the next edition in two years' time, and falling at the final hurdle in such a fashion can only go on to be further motivation for the team. When the pandemonium dies down, they need only load up a tape of their rapturous win over Australia in Sydney to open the tournament to remind themselves of what they can achieve.
For one captivating night, Yadav – one of the side's most capped players, and one not at all overwhelmed by the occasion or the crowd of 13,000-plus – slowed the cricketing world to her deathly silent tempo, robbed of an unforgettable hat-trick opportunity only by a googly deceiving not just Jess Jonassen but also stumper Taniya Bhatia, right after two balls had dealt perfectly with Rachael Haynes and Ellyse Perry.
Though none of her subsequent performances would be able to match the euphoria of that opening night and its tournament-upending 4-19, especially when the sides came to rematch on a far more run-friendly surface at the MCG, India's minute secret weapon would nevertheless hold a grip on the top of the wicket tally right the way through until the sun began to set over Melbourne. After bringing India into contention for a maiden title, it was only fitting that she fought until the very last ball to lift her side over the line.
13 wickets @ 10.30, strike rate 9.7
When Megan Schutt went wicketless on the tournament's opening night, it was the first time she had done so for more than 20 games of international T20 cricket. The conditions on offer at the Sydney Showground Stadium on its maiden outing as an international cricket venue proved far from suited to her swing-heavy methods, and the figures showed it – only twice in her career in the format had she conceded more runs.
Five games later, she took the wicket that clinched Australia's fifth title, dismissing Poonam Yadav to secure her own career-best figures and match the record tally for wickets in a single T20 World Cup set by England's Anya Shrubsole in 2014.
The last three in her haul of 4-18 were tailenders desperately flailing with the game already gone, but earlier she had sparked India's sensational collapse by becoming the first bowler in the tournament to cut off a Shafali Verma onslaught before it could even truly begin.
Four in the final followed two top-order victims in the semi-final and three in the dying moments of Australia's group decider with New Zealand, as well as three more in the pool win over Bangladesh. The 27-year-old boasts an astonishing career record in the short format – 89 wickets in 67 games, going at under a run a ball – but in three T20 World Cup trips so far, she always finds a way to step up another level entirely.
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