Star allrounder is hopeful a rare block of games for South Australia will give her the ideal preparation ahead of the massive India series<\/p>\n
A candid Tahlia McGrath says she’s feeling pressure to perform after self-admitted under-par campaigns at the ODI World Cup and Women’s Big Bash League.<\/p>\n
Australia’s vice-captain McGrath will switch her attention to her state side South Australia in the Women’s National Cricket League in order to restore some confidence ahead of the blockbuster multi-format series against India in February and March.<\/p>\n
The allrounder made the call to sit out of next year’s lucrative Women’s Premier League to get more time at home and simplify her approach leading into the massive series.<\/p>\n
McGrath played all seven games at the World Cup in India as Australia crashed out to the host nation in the semi-final. Batting at No.7, she only had four hits for the tournament, scoring 55 runs, and went wicketless from just two bowling innings.<\/p>\n
As Adelaide Strikers captain at the WBBL, McGrath again felt she “underperformed”. She scored 98 runs in nine innings as the Strikers finished sixth.<\/p>\n
“I probably didn’t play as good a cricket as I would have liked over the World Cup and Big Bash,” McGrath said.<\/p>\n
“Tools down and get(ting) that confidence back for me will be the best prep leading into hopefully a big India series.<\/p>\n
“Cricket is pretty brutal game and is very much based around confidence.<\/p>\n
“When it’s not going your way, the world gets pretty big on you. I’ve definitely underperformed and felt pressure a bit.”<\/p>\n
McGrath returns to South Australia where she is available for six matches before the first T20I against India on February 15.<\/p>\n
McGrath snatches victory for Scorpions with brilliant ton<\/p>\n
Due to her national commitments, she’s only featured four times for SA in the past four seasons, with her most recent appearance coming at the start of the 2023-24 summer.<\/p>\n
It’s a big boost for SA, who currently sit fourth but have two games in hand on the top three sides.<\/p>\n
While the 30-year-old is excited to play a solid block of List A cricket, it’s come at the expense of another season at the WPL.<\/p>\n
McGrath opted not to register her name for the auction despite featuring in all three previous seasons.<\/p>\n
“There’s so much cricket on the calendar,” McGrath said.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been lucky enough to play three years for the UP Warriorz and absolutely loved it.<\/p>\n
“But the stage I’m at in my career, it’s picking and choosing which tours I go on and probably prioritising international cricket and spending a bit of time at home as well.<\/p>\n
“It’s worked out really well that I get to play some games for South Australia.<\/p>\n
“Exactly what I need right now is just to get out play for South Australia, hopefully spend some time in the middle, hopefully some overs under my belt.”<\/p>\n
The series against India marks the start of a busy period for the national women’s team. The Test at the WACA Ground in Perth is scheduled to finish on March 9 after which Australia will very quickly head to the Caribbean for a multi-format series against West Indies. Australia’s first match of the T20 World Cup in England is then on June 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Star allrounder is hopeful a rare block of games for South Australia will give her the ideal preparation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85,83],"class_list":{"0":"post-366919","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cricket","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-text"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}