Australia women to play against India in T20 World Cup warm-up game on February 6th

In the run-up to the T20 World Cup, Australia will face India and Ireland, as the defending champions attempt to quickly acclimatise to unfamiliar conditions in South Africa.

Australia women team lifted their seventh World Cup (Courtesy: ScorpiansSA/Twitter)
By Kshitij Ojha | Jan 31, 2023 | 3 Min Read follow icon Follow Us

In the run-up to the T20 World Cup, Australia will face India and Ireland, as the defending champions attempt to quickly acclimatise to unfamiliar conditions in South Africa. The Australians’ penultimate T20I on home soil before departing for Cape Town was called off without a ball being bowled on Sunday because of severe rain in Canberra. The Australian World Cup squad of 15 will arrive on Tuesday evening and will have two training sessions before their first official warm-up match against India at Newlands on February 6.

They will then play Ireland at Stellenbosch University on February 8, followed by their World Cup opener against New Zealand in Paarl on February 11. Australia captain Meg Lanning said after the washout against Pakistan that she was not concerned about the wasted chance, but that the forthcoming warm-up games and training sessions in South Africa would be crucial.

Read more: SA20: Squads and broadcasting details for the inaugural season

Australia are defending champions

“I don’t think it’s too big of an issue, to be honest, we’re closer to the end of the season than we are to the start,” Lanning said on Sunday. “We’ve had plenty of match practice, and everybody’s played enough cricket to feel in a good spot, so I don’t think it’ll impact us at all, really. (The team is) nicely placed, I feel like we’ve been able to work on some different roles for different players, and where that might fit within the side and we’ve got some really good options and depth in a lot of areas.”

The match against rival championship challenger India will be the ideal litmus test for Australia, as it will allow them to analyse the conditions at Newlands, where they will not play during the group stage but will host both the semi-finals and the final. Meanwhile, in the Ireland game, allrounder Kim Garth will face her previous team for the first time since moving to Australia in 2020. Garth, who made her Ireland debut at the age of 14 in 2010, qualified for Australia last September and made her debut in the green and gold against India in December.

Garth is one of just a few Australian players who has previously played in South Africa, having gone there with Ireland, while Georgia Wareham and Annabel Sutherland went on an Under-19s tour there in 2018. Lanning stated that the Australian brain trust would draw on the knowledge of individuals with more experience in foreign situations, like the Under-19 World Cup side, whose hopes of winning the inaugural title ended in a painful semi-final defeat on Friday. “The under-19s are probably a good resource for us just in terms of the conditions, so we’ll certainly do all the research we can to get as much information that we can, but at the end of the day, it’s about adjusting and making sure that we’re doing that really quickly,” she said.

2023 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup warm-up matches

Feb 6: New Zealand v West Indies, Western Province Cricket Club, 10 am

Feb 6: Sri Lanka v Ireland, Stellenbosch University, 10am

Feb 6: South Africa v England, Stellenbosch University, 2.30pm

Feb 6: Australia v India, Newlands Cricket Ground, 2.30 pm

Feb 6: Pakistan v Bangladesh, Western Province Cricket Club, 2.30 pm

Feb 8: Ireland v Australia, Stellenbosch University, 10 am

Feb 8: England v New Zealand, Western Province Cricket Club, 10 am

Feb 8: Pakistan v South Arica, Boland Park, Paarl, 2.30 pm

Feb 8: West Indies v Sri Lanka, Western Province Cricket Club, 2.30 pm

Feb 8: Bangladesh v India, Stellenbosch University, 2.30pm





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