If it's not Alyssa's day tomorrow, someone else will step up, says Meg Lanning

The first stand-alone ICC Women’s World T20 has reached its final stage where Meg Lanning led Australia will face their arch-rival Heather Knight led England in the final on November 24 at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua.



Australia have won the title thrice, whereas their daunting foe England won that in the inaugural year. Ahead of the important day, the two captains spoke to the media.



Within 16 months, England will feature in their second World Cup final. Talking about that captain Heather Knight shared, "It's a real achievement, I think, especially the experience, I guess, we've brought to this tournament, and the girls are massively excited. It's probably not been the smoothest ride to get to the final, but the main thing is we're here and we've got another opportunity to have a shot at winning a global trophy again and what an achievement it would be, how special it would be, if we could be double white-ball champions."



Whereas Australia captain Meg Lanning is all excited to face England. "We feel like we played well last night. We came here to play off in this final. We've given ourselves the opportunity now to win, and coming up against England, always great games. We know it's going to be extremely tough. The group's really been looking forward to this opportunity for a long time, and we just can't wait to get out there tomorrow night."



While talking about England-Australia rivalry, Knight said, "I think you can't really ignore that it's the old enemy, can you? It's probably the two best teams in the world historically over the last few years, and we've had some amazing games of cricket recently."



"We're going to have to be at the top of our game. Australians look really strong. They've played some really great cricket this tournament. It's going to be another brilliant day for women's cricket, and hopefully we've got some of the crowds similar to what's been in the semifinals yesterday." she added.



Lanning said, "There's no hiding anymore. Every team knows everything about the individual players, and we know each other a little bit off the field as well due to WBBL and KSL. So we followed their progress through the group stage, and they've been playing some really good cricket. They played excellently last night. We're very aware of the challenge that's we've got in front of us coming up against a really good team, and we're really excited about that."



Nine years ago, England won the double title in 2009, trying to repeat that, Knight shared, "It would be really special. We look back at 2009, and that's a really sort of quality team in the history of women's cricket, and we spoke about that team, some of the girls were obviously involved in that, and we talked about emulating them, about the opportunity to do that. It doesn't come around very often, and I guess as a team it's our chance to really cement ourselves in history as a brilliant white ball format team."



She further added, "it's a great opportunity for us. But tomorrow we've got folks on all about the game -- how we perform, how we carry ourselves, how we continue the good things that we've done so far in this competition. If you sort of look after the processes, you're hopeful, obviously, that you put yourself in the best place to put in a good performance and get that result. So, yeah, it would be very special if we were able to achieve that."



While talking about the hat-trick, Knight expressed, "Yes, I was aware that I was on a hat trick, but best decision for the team was for Anya to bowl that over to the next end. Obviously, next time I come up to bowl, I'll actually be on a hat-trick."



While talking about Alyssa Healy's form, Knight told, "She's played really well. She's probably been the one batter that's been consistent throughout the tournament. Of course, we'll look at her. We'll look at all of their players. They've got a very strong batting lineup, a very deep batting lineup. We're going to have clear plans in place to obviously reflect the conditions that we're going to face as well."



Whereas Lanning said they are not that much dependent on Healy, any batter can pull off the match on their day. "Alyssa's been in great form throughout and is really enjoying her cricket. But I don't think we're relying on her. She's just taking her opportunity and running with it. I've got no doubt that, if someone else gets the opportunity tomorrow, that they'll be able to do it just as well."



"We've got great batting depth within our side. We've got Ellyse Perry at 7 and Rachael Haynes at 6, who have only been facing a couple of balls here and there. As I said, that's one of our strengths. We want to use it as much as we can. If it's not Alyssa's day tomorrow, I'm sure someone else will step up," Lanning added.