They went down to India in the semifinals of the 50-over World Cup a few months ago and started a home T20 series against the same opposition with defeat, but Australia women’s coach Shelley Nitschke is not too concerned as the once-near-invincible side prepares for a new era. The hosts lost to the Harmanpreet Kaur-led team in a rain-hit game in Sydney on Sunday, as the road to the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup in the middle of the year begins in earnest. But Nitschke believes the reversal in their first match in the format for almost a year was no “false start.” India, on a high after their first global silverware in senior women’s cricket, were coming off a 5-0 series win over Sri Lanka. The 21-run defeat on the DLS method, after Australia were bowled out for 133 in 18 overs, put Australia 0-1 down in a home white-ball bilateral series for the first time since January 2016. The T20Is are to come followed by the ODI and Test legs of the multi-format series. “I don’t think it was a false start – we obviously didn’t play our best cricket (and) certainly we would like to post a few more runs than that,” Nitschke said after the match. “That can happen in T20 cricket, and we just weren’t quite on top of our game today.” The Aussies have one eye on the big event in England a few months down the line, but the coach stressed that winning the ongoing series was the main priority at the moment, even though various players and combinations are going to be tested. “There’s some real friendly or good competition for spots, I think, which is excellent considering what we’ve got coming up,” Nitschke said. “First and foremost, winning this series is important to us, but that will also feed into what the World Cup looks like as well. We’ve got a bit of time up our sleeve for that (experimentation), we’ll be wanting to win these next two games.Story continues below this ad Australia have just five official T20Is left to play ahead of the T20 World Cup She added that the team has five warm-up games – three against South Africa and two official tournament practice matches – in the lead-up to the T20 World Cup “to get a few things right”. “So, we’re here to win this series and put the team out that we think can do that,” the 49-year-old World Cup winner said. The next two T20Is are on February 19 (Canberra) and 21 (Adelaide). The three ODIs are on February 24 (Brisbane), 27 and March 1 (both Hobart), followed by a solitary Test at Perth’s WACA ground from March 6-9.
No ‘false dawn’; Australia women’s coach says defeat to India in first T20I not too concerning ahead of World Cup
