Lanning opens about her time away from cricket and her return to it

It is never easy to sit on the sidelines, just watching as people around you do what you love. Especially after you have had a disappointing World Cup campaign and are hosting a major Ashes series on home soil. However, that is what fate had in store for Australian captain Meg Lanning. After suffering a shoulder injury that she needed surgery for, Lanning was unable to play all of Australia's matches in the World Cup. She was also ruled out for the home Ashes series. In her blog for cricket.com.au, Lanning opened up about her struggles through the last 12-18 months and her return to the side.



In her blog, she wrote, "The last 12 to 18 months have been the hardest part of my career so far. Not just missing time with my shoulder injury, but even the lead up to it through last year's World Cup was a bit of a disaster, really. The timing of the injury was terrible and we ended up not getting the result that we wanted as well. That's something that still haunts me a little bit today."



Due to her injury, Lanning was unable to play international cricket for 8-9 months. This included missing a much anticipated Ashes series at home, which would feature the first pink-ball test played in either men or women's Ashes series. That time was particularly difficult for Lanning. "I remember going to the Ashes Test match in Sydney last November and I would sit in the change room with the team, and I felt like a total outsider in my own team, in a way. I'd never experienced that before: I didn't know where to sit, I didn't know where to put my bag, I didn't know whether I could talk to someone," she admitted in her blog.



Lanning further added how this experience potentially helped her as a captain, saying "I didn't think it would be that hard. Everyone else was like, 'I don't know why you're feeling like that, that's silly', but that's just the way it was and it sort of struck me like... I'm the captain of the team and if I'm feeling like that when I'm out, even if you're 12th or 13th player in the team if that's the way that I'm feeling when I'm not quite in it, imagine how other people feel."



Despite her long break from the game, Lanning's return to it was nothing short of memorable. In March, Australia toured India, white-washing the ODI series. They then won the Twenty-20 tri-series between them, the hosts and England. Lanning remained unbeaten throughout the series and finished a dream return off by bagging the Player-of-the-Match honours in the last match. About that tour, Lanning wrote, "That was our first T20 series in a few years as well, but it wasn't just because we were winning - we really enjoyed each other's company as well. The team was in a really good space over in India and I think that was about people being confident, enjoying themselves, sharing their own personalities. Hopefully, that's just the start of what this team is capable of."



Lanning was all praise for Australia's stand-in captain in Lanning's absence Rachael Haynes, who is now the vice-captain of the squad. Haynes led the team to retain the Ashes and stepped up in the absence of a true legend of the women's game. Lanning further elaborated on how Haynes is the perfect balance to her method of captaincy, writing "She did a great job filling in as captain in the time that I was out injured and then she moved back into that vice-captain role perfectly. She's a good balance for me, she's a little bit more detail-oriented than I am and she picks up on different things that maybe I don't do as well. Together as a team, I think we work really well and when you throw our coach Matthew Mott into that mix as well in terms of the leadership, I think we've got a good mix of personalities and being able to challenge the group as well."