Gardner's all-round brilliance powers Australia into 8th women's T20 World Cup final

Australia qualified for their eighth final in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, beating West Indies by 8 wickets in the first semi-final on Tuesday, June 30 at Kennington Oval, London. It was a complete dominating performance by the six-time champions, who didn’t give West Indies an inch throughout the game as they march into the final on a six-match unbeaten streak.

After being put in to bat first, West Indies could only manage to score 125/7 in their allotted 20 overs, with contributions from Hayley Matthews (30 off 28), Shemaine Campbelle (22 off 25) and Deandra Dottin (26* off 16). For Australia, Ashleigh Gardner, Georgia Wareham (2/17, 3 overs) and Sophie Molineux (2/30) kept a stranglehold on the West Indies batting throughout the innings.

In reply, Australia eased past the paltry total in just 13 overs, riding on a blistering half-century from Beth Mooney, while Ashleigh Gardner (35* off 20) also made a valuable contribution. The duo helped their team complete the fastest run chase in T20 World Cup knockouts.

For West Indies, Hayley Matthews (1/23, 3 overs) and Chinelle Henry (1/20, 2 overs) picked up one wicket each, but it wasn't enough to stop a rampaging Australian batting lineup. Meanwhile, Australia will next take on the winner of the second semifinal between England and South Africa in the final on Sunday, July 5 at Lord’s.

Top run-scorer of the Match

Top wicket-taker of the Match

Player of the Match

Ashleigh Gardner was adjudged Player of the Match for her terrific all-round show. She first dismissed Stafanie Taylor (0 off 2) and Jahzara Claxton (0 off 3) in the same over and finished with figures of 2/13 in four overs. Gardner later scored an unbeaten 35* (20), studded with four fours and a six as she got involved in a match-winning 63-run stand off 36 balls for the fourth wicket alongside Beth Mooney. It was the third Player of the Match award for Gardner in the semi final/final of the Women's T20 World Cup, most by any player.

Turning Point

West Indies got off to a poor start to their innings as Qiana Joseph (16 off 22) couldn’t get going. They failed to score at even 6 runs per over for the majority of the innings, and the middle order collapse, where they went from 47/0 to 59/4 within a space of 17 balls, only added to their woes. From there on, they couldn't really recover and had to settle for a below-par total, which Australia chased down rather comfortably.

What did the captains say:

Winning Captain, Sophie Molineux (Australia women):

[On what she has learned over the course of the tournament and reaching the final] Heaps, heaps. I think the T20 World Cup, you just have to ride it. It’s full of momentum swings. But, look, I’ve really enjoyed it. I think the group’s really enjoyed it, and that’s probably the biggest thing for us. And, we’ve helped ourselves, we’ve stopped ourselves from thinking too far ahead, but now we can think about the final, which is pretty cool. [On whether Deandra Dottin’s uncertain availability changed Australia’s plans during the innings] I actually had no idea. I didn’t know until maybe five or six overs in that she wasn’t, and then she did, and she made an impact. So yeah. [On keeping the seamers on for longer against Hayley Matthews and Qiana Joseph] Yeah, I think with the new ball there, like Kimmy always shapes the ball and bowls beautifully in the power play, and Lucy did a really good job as well. So I just thought that was probably the best match-up to those two. And yeah, I thought we bowled really well. Hayley and Joseph actually, yeah, tried to go, but I thought we held our nerve, which was really cool. [On the approach to chasing a target of 125] No, no, I think we all wanted to sort of get it done as quick as possible. And, you know, Moons and Ash were clinical in batting to get us away just to calm the nerves in the change room. Yeah, it was really good to see. [On Elise Perry leaving the field during the match and her fitness] Yeah, a bit of that again. Yeah, just, I think, just some quadrant awareness. But it sounds like she should be more than okay to go on Sunday. [On the team’s plans during the five-day break before the final] Sleep. I’m looking forward to a good night’s sleep tonight. But, oh, look, we’outside the leg-stump make sure that we celebrate what’s been a pretty cool two weeks for the group. We’outside the leg-stump make sure we do that. Yeah, rest and recover over the next little bit, and then build up without thinking too much and playing the game over and over in our heads. I think we’re just going to make the most of the week and make sure we enjoy every part of it.

Losing Captain, Hayley Matthews (West Indies women):

[On whether reaching the semi-final helped the team move on from the defeats to England and Ireland] Maybe a bit of both. I feel like we did not have our best game or play to our full potential for the entire tournament. We felt like our great game could have looked a lot better than that, but we weren’t able to execute, I think, in any of the matches. A full team performance to pull together, really, really good, yeah, performance by everyone, I guess. [On Deandra Dottin’s medical emergency just before the start of the match and its impact on the team] Yeah, I think it was probably a bit scary for some of us. She’s obviously a massive player for us, so whenever you see her go down. So to see her pretty much almost passing out like that after the anthem was a bit scary. But yeah, just a bit of a medical emergency. But at the same time, it shows how much of a fighter she is in the way that she was able to come back out and not only come back out, but try to throw a few punches at the Aussies as well, speaks a lot about her character. [On whether the uncertainty over Dottin’s availability made her more conservative at the top of the order] Somewhat. I feel like we wanted to get off to a good start and probably put myself under a bit of pressure based on how things were going in the first six overs. Probably could have gone to my strengths a bit more, but certainly wasn’t sure if she was coming out and did want to take it a bit deep. But I think it was a quite difficult one for me to assess knowing that we needed to get the run rate up. However, I probably needed to stay at the crease. And yeah, I think the shot I played probably showed a bit of it.