'No ceiling' feeling driving Aussies' attacking approach

Australia have vowed to bring a “distinctly Australian” brand of attacking cricket to the Women’s World Cup as they look to get the most out of their enviable depth in pursuit of a second consecutive title.

No team has won back-to-back Women’s Cricket World Cups in close to 40 years.

Australia are out to change that trend – and push the boundaries – as they take a ‘no ceilings’ approach to their 2025 campaign in India and Sri Lanka.

At first glance, this squad on paper is not too dissimilar to the one that lifted the trophy in Christchurch in 2022.

But a fresh leadership group, a brace of young players taking on crucial roles and a new ethos all underpin the current Australian group, who remain the No.1 ranked team but who know all too well the rest of the world is coming hard for them.

“I think the whole ‘defending a title’ doesn’t sit well with me, because you’re not the keeper of that trophy,” Australia captain Alyssa Healy told cricket.com.au in the lead-up to the tournament.

“Yes, you’ve got it, but it’s not yours to try and hold on to – you actually have to go out there and win a World Cup.

“In my mind, you’ve got to attack the game, and take it on, and you’ve got to beat every single team in the world to win that trophy and that’s literally the way that we’re approaching it.”

Through the five years leading up to the 2022 World Cup, there was a steady hum underlying every Australian ODI game, every one-day series: there was a wrong to be righted. A trophy gone begging at the 2017 tournament, the shock of a semi-final defeat.

That loss in Derby birthed a thousand allrounders and transformed Australia’s approach, turning what was already the world’s strongest group of players into a ruthlessly efficient winning machine spearheaded by the combination of captain Meg Lanning, her deputy Rachael Haynes and coach Matthew Mott.

This is a different group that has arrived on Indian shores in pursuit of an unprecedented eighth World Cup title.

That desire to win is unchanged – rather, it is burning brightly, after their T20 World Cup knockout loss 12 months ago – but the baggage of 2017 was vanquished at Hagley Oval in April 2022.

The core of the squad remains the same, with 10 of the same players who travelled to New Zealand in 2022, but the leadership has changed entirely, and other key staff have also moved on to fresh roles in the intervening years.

Now led by skipper Healy, vice-captain Tahlia McGrath and coach Shelley Nitschke, this group is all about pushing the limits of what is possible in the women’s game, with an ethos of ‘no ceilings’.

“It’s definitely a different feel in the environment,” Healy explained. “That’s not negative, not positive, it’s just a different feeling.

“We’ve had a change of leadership, we’ve lost a lot of senior players, also a lot of games and experience there and we actually had quite a bit of changeover of staff as well over the past few seasons, which actually makes more of a difference than people probably (realise) from the outside.”

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Australia want to become the first team to win consecutive titles at the tournament since 1988, and they want to do so with a brand of cricket that will leave a permanent mark on the game.

Driving Australia’s approach is their desire to make sure they are getting the absolute most out of their enviable depth in all facets of the game.

There’s the top seven of Healy, Phoebe Litchfield, Ellyse Perry, Beth Mooney, Annabel Sutherland, Ashleigh Gardner and Tahlia McGrath, with Georgia Voll waiting in the wings.

Then there’s the spin attack of Gardner, Alana King, Georgia Wareham and Sophie Molineux, and quick Darcie Brown hoping to make an impact with the ball alongside Megan Schutt and Kim Garth, the latter also playing her first ODI World Cup after moving from Ireland.

There’s also the injection of youth brought by Litchfield and Voll, while Sutherland is poised to play a key all-round role after sitting on the fringe in 2022.

“For us as a group, especially since the last one-day World Cup, there’s been quite a lot of evolution, and there is quite a different feel to the side,” Perry told cricket.com.au.

“The players that have come in have really taken a hold of the way that our group plays and the style of cricket that that we want to put forward.

“Certainly we’ve been really influenced by past playing groups, but we’ve almost created a new style on top of that … this World Cup probably presents the biggest challenge and the blankest canvas for us to go and try and play that style of cricket.

“Hopefully, it’s a really distinctly Australian style, with the group of players that we’ve got and the depth that we’ve got in in our batting line-up, but also the variety within our bowling attack.

“It’s a team that literally just doesn’t take their foot off the pedal, but in a really smart way – it’s not just about going out there and going hell for leather all the time – I think hopefully we’ve got the capacity to adapt to any circumstances and still always be attacking and positive.

“That’s the challenge for us … everyone speaks about positive cricket, but being able to do that in all circumstances is the thing that we’ve really taken on and hopefully we’re able to do more often than not.”

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While there is no five-year redemption arc following this Australian team, their current approach has been influenced by the disappointment of last year’s T20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates, where the bitter taste of their semi-final defeat to South Africa lingers.

Australia will not want a second ICC trophy leaving their grasp.

“The times where you haven’t been as successful as you’ve wanted to be, turn into such big positives in terms of driving discussion around what we could have done better, where we want to go as a team, and the style of cricket we want to play,” Perry said of the disappointment in Dubai.

“It’s been such a pivotal moment for us again as a team to reset and hopefully launch from a new platform of collected understanding of how we want to play and how we want to be successful.”

It is here that a lingering impact of the 2017 World Cup continues to serve Australia.

The aftermath of that semi-final loss in Derby brought a reckoning not only to selections and playing style, but possibly more importantly, the way the Australians communicate openly and honestly with one another off the field.

“You’ve got to deep dive”, veteran quick Megan Scutt said. “If you’re not actually reflecting on (losses) – it’s good to reflect on the emotions, and that’s naturally going to come – but if you don’t figure out why you got there in the first place then or where you’re going to go, you’re just sitting in pity for a while and hoping for the best.

“Some honest conversations really need to be had and we do that well.

“It probably wasn’t that way at the start of my career, so to be at that place now we all feel comfortable and open to have those discussions is cool.”

Aussie stars make their 2025 World Cup predictions

Beth Mooney explained the outcome of those honest discussions, saying Australia realised that, despite heading into the UAE tournament with a similar desire to push the limits, the style of cricket they actually produced at times had not matched up to those expectations.

With seven group stage matches against seven opponents across a range of unfamiliar venues over the next 25 days, Australia’s approach will again be put to the test.

“I think we probably got found out a little bit at the T20 World Cup in different conditions, and perhaps playing a style of the game that we weren’t really happy with,” Mooney said.

“For mine, I don’t know if (the 2024 result is) an extra motivator, I think it’s more excitement about what could be achieved.

“I think the group’s in a really good place, and for me, that’s really exciting to be a part of.

“Fifty-over World Cups are the truest test of the best team in the world – you play everyone once, you’ve got to play good cricket over an extended period of time to be successful.

“T20 World Cups are tough to win as well, they’re pretty fickle, but I do think the 50-over format, the best team over the longest period ends up coming out on top.”

2025 Women’s ODI World Cup

Australia squad: Alyssa Healy (c), Tahlia McGrath (vc), Darcie Brown, Ashleigh Gardner, Kim Garth, Heather Graham, Alana King, Phoebe Litchfield, Sophie Molineux, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Voll, Georgia Wareham

Australia’s group stage matches

October 1: v New Zealand, Holkar Stadium, Indore, 7:30pm AEST

October 4: v Sri Lanka, R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 7:30pm AEST

October 8: v Pakistan, R. Premadasa Stadium, Colombo, Sri Lanka, 8:30pm AEDT

October 12: v India, ACA-VDCA Stadium Visakhapatnam, 8:30pm AEDT

October 16: v Bangladesh, ACA-VDCA Stadium Visakhapatnam, 8:30pm AEDT

October 22: v England, Holkar Stadium, Indore, 8:30pm AEDT

October 25: v South Africa, Holkar Stadium, Indore, 8:30pm AEDT

Finals

Semi-final 1: Guwahati or Colombo*, October 29, 8:30pm AEDT

Semi-final 2: Mumbai, October 30, 8:30pm AEDT

Final: Mumbai or Colombo*, November 2, 8:30pm AEDT