{"id":783726,"date":"2026-07-07T00:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T00:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/783726\/"},"modified":"2026-07-07T00:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T00:39:11","slug":"t20wc-final-eng-vs-aus-sophie-molineux-the-leader-australia-saw-before-everyone-else-did","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/783726\/","title":{"rendered":"T20WC final Eng vs Aus – Sophie Molineux, the leader Australia saw before everyone else did"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sophie Molineux<\/a> has that unique skill that only the very best communicators have. When she speaks to you, even in a room full of people, she makes you feel like you are the only one there.<\/p>\n

She holds eye contact, her words are thoughtful, delivered calmly, and then, just often enough, she’ll crack a joke to keep the energy high yet relaxed. She is a people person.<\/p>\n

With her captaincy still in its infancy, Molineux has done all she can to silence the doubts – and there were a few – about her ability to lead the Australian team.<\/p>\n

She has done so in the most emphatic way, with an undefeated run to the T20 World Cup title<\/a>, Australia<\/a>‘s seventh trophy in the competition and their first since Molineux was appointed as Alyssa Healy’s successor six months ago.<\/p>\n

She was asked on the eve of the final whether she felt any sense of satisfaction having got this far after her appointment was questioned. “Not yet,” came the response, accompanied by a small, knowing smile.<\/p>\n

Asked again some 18 hours later with a gleaming trophy sitting before her, and the answer was equally forceful but with the smile replaced by a wide grin: “Yep!”<\/p>\n

“Yeah, it’s been the most amazing day,” she said. “To have walked away with World Cup under our arms in front of 30,000 here at Lord’s, it was an incredible, incredibly special day and I’m just so proud of the group.”<\/p>\n

Molineux’s appointment in January was met with some outside noise. Surprising was one of the more polite descriptions, particularly when Australia appeared to have more experienced candidates.<\/p>\n

Tahlia McGrath, with 119 international caps to that point, had already captained Australia 16 times as Healy’s deputy and Ash Gardner, with 190, had been a mainstay of a hugely successful era for the team. Both were named as deputy vice-captains to Molineux.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, injuries had meant that through the course of an eight-year career, Molineux had only represented her country 58 times when the announcement came.<\/p>\n

A foot stress fracture in late 2021 kept her out of the 50-over World Cup and Commonwealth Games in 2022. She then ruptured her ACL, ruling her out of action for a year, including the triumphant 2023 T20 World Cup campaign. She didn’t play a T20I for more than two years, between October 2021 and March 2024.<\/p>\n

Doubts arose within too, especially when Molineux was injured after becoming captain.<\/p>\n

She missed the remainder of Australia’s multi-format home series against India after suffering from lower back pain during the first ODI in February and played only as a batter on the tour of the Caribbean in March.<\/p>\n

\"Sophie<\/p>\n

Sophie Molineux pours a beer over her head on the Lord’s dressing room balcony\u2022ICC\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

“When I took over, I was a bit messy at the start, to be fair,” Molineux said. “Captaining a couple of games and getting injured, shock, and I suppose there was a few doubts internally, a few doubts externally.<\/p>\n

“But I think what maybe I’ve learned over my journey so far is that you just have to keep believing and I’m incredibly lucky that people believed in me. I believe in this team and this group more than anything as well, so it’s really satisfying.”<\/p>\n

Those in the know were well aware of Molineux’s leadership qualities. Having captained Victoria’s Under-18s, Molineux went on to skipper a senior Victoria side which at times included Meg Lanning and Ellyse Perry at the age of just 22. She became Melbourne Renegades’ captain in 2021 and led them their first WBBL title in 2024.<\/p>\n

But still the injury question remained. It was only during Australia’s opening match of the T20 World Cup, a 65-run win against South Africa where Molineux took 2 for 17<\/a> from three overs with her left-arm spin, that it was clear she had recovered at the perfect time.<\/p>\n

“When I did miss those games at the start of the summer, after just being announced captain, it probably made me feel like it might not work out,” Molineux added.<\/p>\n

“But I’m so incredibly lucky with the support I’ve had over the last, not only just the last six months, but it’s been 10 years in this team for Australia. The group has just been incredible in terms of being open to anything and being flexible and we’ve grown and evolved in the last six months more than I’ve ever seen.”<\/p>\n

Beth Mooney<\/a>, whose innings of 64 off 49 balls took the title decider away from England as she and Phoebe Litchfield shared a century stand to break the back of a record T20 World Cup final run chase of 151, was full of praise for Molineux.<\/p>\n

“Soph has been an amazing leader in Australian cricket for a number of years,” Mooney said. “There were some concerns about her taking over the leadership of this team, but internally we all knew it was the right call.<\/p>\n

“She’s got a great temperament about her, great tactical nous and good with people. There’s only a handful of players I’ve played under that have the skill, the temperament and the tactical side of the game that can make it work. Soph’s done amazingly.<\/p>\n

“I’m sure she’s earned some time off now. I imagine it’s been a pretty exhausting tournament for her taking on that role. We’ve come off the back of a couple of semi-final losses, so she’s done amazing. The group’s got really behind her.”<\/p>\n

An illustration of just how exhausting this campaign has been for the new captain was Molineux’s response when asked how she would celebrate and her instant, if unrealistic, answer was: “Clean my teeth and go to bed in the next hour or so.”<\/p>\n

This, from the woman dubbed by Litchfield “the best partier”, who stole the show from Katy Perry while celebrating the 2020 title<\/a> at the MCG and who had livened up her squad’s mobility sessions on this trip by taking centre stage as “Jane”, the fluorescent lycra-clad exercise instructor who became a popular alter ego. Then came the Shane Warne tribute celebration on the balcony at Lord’s dancing with a stump and pouring a drink over her own head.\"Sophie<\/p>\n

Sophie Molineux danced with Katy Perry after the 2020 T20 World Cup final\u2022Getty Images<\/p>\n

According to Litchfield, it’s as much what Molineux has done off the field as on it, which makes her such a strong leader.<\/p>\n

“I know there was the clunky start, not being able to be on the park in every game, but I think the work that she’s done off the field, it doesn’t matter if she’s on the field,” Litchfield said. “Her leadership and her presence and her beautiful mind set us up for success.<\/p>\n

“She was really open and transparent with her situation and that made it easier. She was just a proud Australian leading a side\u2026 our whole group never doubted her position at any spot.”<\/p>\n

If any further proof of her team’s support was needed, it came in the way they have quietly gone from a group that was knocked out in the semi-finals of the previous two World Cups, in 2024 and 2025, to one looking back to its dominant best.<\/p>\n

Their bowlers kept a lid on England on a difficult surface before Mooney and Litchfield settled and made it look like they were batting someplace else so that the hosts never really made it into contention.<\/p>\n

Molineux said: “We’re always in the business of trying to get better, so I’m sure we definitely will celebrate this and it rolls on pretty quick after this. We don’t think we’ve reached any ceilings yet.<\/p>\n

“I hope it becomes one of the great sides. I suppose we haven’t won one of these for a while so hopefully we can keep this momentum going. Beyond the cricket, they’re all just really good people that want the best for each other and that’s the beauty of this team.”<\/p>\n

Asked about the record-breaking crowds that had attended the tournament, Molieneux described the final day, witnessed in person by 28,887 people, as “a moment in time that was really special”.<\/p>\n

Sophie Molineux, you have achieved something really special. Now is your time.<\/p>\n

Valkerie Baynes is a general editor, women’s cricket, at Cricinfo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sophie Molineux has that unique skill that only the very best communicators have. When she speaks to you,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,203020,740,12063,43,44,145550,85],"class_list":["post-783726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bulletin","tag-cricket","tag-daily","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-package","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783726","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=783726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}