Lanning: Bowling and fielding not yet up to standard

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Cricket365
June 30, 2017

Australia women’s captain Meg Lanning says her team still have work to do in the bowling and fielding department after their eight-wicket victory over Sri Lanka in the Women’s World Cup on Thursday.

Lanning struck a majestic unbeaten 152 as Australia chased down what looked like a difficult target of 258 with more than six overs to spare.

Sri Lanka’s total of 257/9 was dominated by a record-breaking knock of 178 not out from Chamari Atapattu.

REPORT: Australia overcome Sri Lanka despite Athapaththu heroics

While praising the Sri Lanka number three for her innings, Lanning felt her bowlers were not up to standard.

Lanning said: “I don’t think we did as well as we would have liked, in the field and with the ball it wasn’t up to the standard we like, but that’s not taking anything away from Atapattu.

“She put lot of pressure our bowlers and any time we didn’t execute, she put us away, so certainly there are a lot of lessons to learn.

“We’ve just got to stick to our processes and stick to the standards we’ve set.”

With two wins from their first two games at the tournament, Australia’s next World Cup opponents are Trans-Tasman rivals New Zealand on Sunday and Lanning is looking forward to the clash.

The Kiwis also beat Sri Lanka in their opening game but had their second match against South Africa rained out on Tuesday.

Lanning said about Sunday’s game: “We’re looking forward to it, all our games against the Kiwis are always very tough and good battles.

“They’ve started off the tournament well so it’ll be a good challenge for us, but we’ve got a couple days now to regroup and come back hard on Sunday.”