The Australian women’s team hunts as a pack. They are consistent, lethal and consistently lethal. Their dominance since the previous World Cup is astounding, even after the retirement of one of their great batters. Here are the numbers behind that dominance.
I feel that every time I try to write on this topic, Australia loses. My jinxing capabilities aside, it is a testament to the team that their turnarounds give me enough material to attempt writing on them again (I spent too much time making some graphs look good and could only publish it after Australia lost.)
This generation of the Australian Women’s team is one of the most dominant cricket teams in history (their closest competition is themselves from about 5 years back.) They do it not through superstars but, through a fierce and unchanging lineup. The numbers sometimes don’t do them justice. Nah, who am I kidding? Proving the sheer superiority of the Australian squad is an easy task for anyone with access to the numbers. But it does make writing about them incredibly difficult. There is just too much to talk about. This piece is but an attempt to scratch the surface.
Numbers include WODI matches starting from 4 Apr 2022, just after the Women’s ODI World Cup till 15th Sept (after the first Australia v India ODI and before the South Africa v Pakistan and the second Australia v India ODI.)
Australia has lost 3 games in this period (4 if you count the latest against India). The period started with 3 victories creating a 15 match non-losing streak (8th longest in WODIs) and they have just ended a 13 game streak (10th longest). They go up to 5th and 7th respectively if we were to eliminate ties and no-results. The cherry on top is that they also have the longest winning streak in men’s or women’s ODIs — 26 matches between 2018–2021.
What makes these victories so authoritative is that they don’t seem too difficult. Australia don’t lost a lot of wickets to secure victories. On average, they lose 5.6 wickets per innings, easily the best, while other teams lose an average of 7.3. While setting targets, they don’t do so well — nearly 8 wickets per innings, while other regulars are at around 7.5. The true ruthlessness arises when one looks at their chasing numbers — losing only 3.4 against a global average of 6.5. For a lineup that bats all the way down to number 9, Australia don’t use even half of it while chasing.
The consistency of the Australian squad plays a massive role in this dominance. The group is tight knit and knows each others’ strengths and weaknesses well. Australia hasn’t played the most games in this period, but they have used the third fewest players (17, a couple more than the size of a normal touring party), behind Thailand (14) and PNG (16).
Now for some maths — to account for the number of games played by each country, we can see how much, on average, is a team changed between games. One can have a maximum of 11 players changed, and a minimum of 0, and this metric can be expressed as a percentage of a team (n/11 %). Australia changes 2% of their team across games, while India are on the higher side with 7%. Other squads are at 4%. Simply put, Australia doesn’t change their team a lot.
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Alternatively (and easily) we can consider the average number of games played by each player — Aussies play an average of 18.8 games against a global average of 11.92. The average Aussie player plays 65% of the team’s total games. Australians play more games than others and also play most of their teams games — so the lineups don’t change and the players’ roles remain well-defined.
Australia have had 4 players play all their ODIs in this period, (the best after PNG (7), Thailand and Netherlands (5)) and have 10 to have played more than 70% of their games, the most across countries. Australia, along with Sri Lanka, New Zealand, Zimbabwe, Scotland and PNG are also the only teams to have not had players play only a single game.
Ireland, Zimbabwe, Thailand and PNG have had only 2 players play three or fewer games, while Australia and Scotland have had 3 players with the same distinction. These 3 players are Georgia Voll, who was added to the squad last season, Meg Lanning, who retired soon after the World Cup and Grace Harris, who is a T20 regular. Australia doesn’t look far for short term replacements. They are boosted by having a team built of all-rounders and wicketkeepers. It shows how everyone in the squad is capable of stepping up to the plate when required.
They hunt as a pack. Playing in franchise leagues — the WPL or the Hundred, just seems to depower them. The WPL was won this year by the Mumbai Indians, who have no Aussies in the squad, and run on the might of Indian players and star all-rounders Hayley Mathews and Nat Sciver-Brunt. The Hundred, however, was a good run for the some of the Aussies — Litchfield won MVP and the winning team boasted Sutherland and Wareham as well.
When they play as a pack, their bowling is boosted by an incredibly athletic and skillful fielding unit — units which don’t exist anywhere else in the world. Their bowling goes on forever, capable of having 8 players bowl extended spells if required.
And if that wasn’t enough, they also bat forever. Their averages for most partnerships are consistently higher than other teams, especially for the opening and 3rd wicket stands (the third wicket stand average might be boosted by the unbroken 3rd wicket stands while chasing.)
What does this tell us? Nothing new. Australia doesn’t change much. They’ve been so far ahead of the times that they don’t need to. They are the best team that any of us have witnessed.
They have lost a rare game. Will they bounce back? I hope they do. I’ve bought tickets to watch them play. They do have a tendency to bounce back.
They’re professional, ruthless, precise and supportive. And it doesn’t seem like they can be stopped. At least for a while. This is dominance in a format that has never been seen in cricket.
