PM Modi extends good wishes to Team Australia for ICC Women's World Cup final
Apr 02, 2022
New Delhi [India], April 2 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday extended good wishes to Team Australia, who will be playing in the final of the ongoing ICC Women's ODI World Cup.
PM Modi's statement came during the signing of a massive historic trade deal with Australia aiming to boost economic ties between the two countries.
"I would like to congratulate and wish all the best to Australia's women's team, who will be playing the final of ICC Women's ODI World Cup tomorrow," PM Modi said.
Despite having won 10 of the previous 11 World Cups between them, England and Australia will face off in an ICC Women's Cricket World Cup final for the first time in 34 years.
The Hagley Oval in Christchurch will play host to the showpiece event of the 2022 tournament as Australia go in search of a record-extending seventh title, while England look to defend their crown.
The two sides started their campaigns together almost a month ago in Hamilton and will end them together, one holding the trophy, the other looking on.
Australia have lost only one World Cup final but it was not too far away from the setting for Sunday's finale. Back in 2000, just down the road from Christchurch at the Bert Sutcliffe Oval in Lincoln, Australia lost the closest final the tournament has ever seen, defeated by New Zealand by just four runs.
That year, England recorded their worst-ever World Cup finish of fifth before fighting back to take the trophy from Australia in 2009.
In doing so, they would go on to have a remarkable year also claiming their first, and only, T20 World Cup as well as an Ashes victory.
It is something that Australia are hoping to match 13 years later, they already hold the T20 trophy having secured that on home soil in 2020 before the Ashes were wrapped up with two games to spare in February, but the one-day World Cup evades them.
Vice-captain Rachael Haynes already has a winner's medal from 2013, and she is well on her way to a competition record, the opening batter sits on 429 runs for the tournament, 27 behind Debbie Hockley of New Zealand's all-time best set in 1997.
That is not the only record that could be broken on Sunday, Sophie Ecclestone has the chance to surpass Australian Lyn Fullston, whose haul of 23 wickets in 1982 remains the mark to beat.
Ecclestone sits on 20 wickets having taken her maiden international five-wicket haul in the semi-final against South Africa ending on six for 36, the best figures by an England bowler in a World Cup as the 2022 edition continues to be bigger and better than anything we have seen before.
The left-arm spinner is emblematic of England's journey throughout the ICC Women's Cricket World Cup 2022 in that she is peaking at exactly the right time.
The 22-year-old started with her worst-ever figures in ODI cricket with no wicket for 77 against the same opponents she will face on Sunday.
