19 March - Auckland - Australia Captain Meg Lanning post-match press conference

Reporter: About your partnerships with Ellyse Perry - You've only failed to get to 50 twice and this was your 6th major partnership together. What is it about you two in chases that works so well?

Meg: I think we've got different games, we hit to the different areas of the ground, which I think helps us to put pressure on the bowlers. She’s very calm, and so I think that that allows me to just settle in and play my game. So, she's a world class player has been for a long time and you know when she's at the crease, I think everybody feels pretty calm. So, it was nice to be able to put that partnership together again, we felt like if we could put a couple of big ones together that was going to help get us over the line and that's how it turned out.

Reporter: Obviously, she started off the match with an over that wasn't ideal. What were you saying to her as she was walking back ?

Meg: I was actually swinging a fair bit - I think so. That's a good thing to start with. Obviously, she would have loved to have had a bit more control over that over but you know, she came back and bowled two good overs towards the back end there. I think so. Yeah, I think she would love to be a little bit better, but that's just the way it goes sometimes. So I said it was springing which is a good thing, I think for us they were bowled through mid-well. So just sort of up on the radar, I think and no doubt she'll be back next game.

Reporter: Obviously unlucky to miss out at the end of the century though. What do you put it down, their bowling or you just trying to get over the line?

Meg: I just wanted to finish the game, I wasn't too worried about getting 100 I would have been nice but I was disappointed that just to add a little bit of unnecessary pressure on Moons and Tahlia there but I thought Moons was really great coming in, she took a lot of pressure off me - hit a couple of boundaries. So I think overall that chase was pretty good. We shall have a bit left in the tank, which I think is important. But yeah, it's nice to chase down a pretty decent total.

Reporter: What were the emotions, potentially the people on the bench when you went back out there having almost go the team through?

Meg: I was pretty confident to be honest. We had Moons there who was set, you know and Tahlia has shown that she was very cool under pressure. So we really expected to be able to get those runs on a on a really good batting wicket. It was frustrating for me to go down. I would have loved to be there just to finish the game and not put that I guess a little bit of unnecessary pressure on Tahlia and Moons but I think overall, that was a pretty clinical chase. I thought Haley and Haynes set up nicely at the top there sort of got us ahead of the rate and that just allowed the new batters to come in to settle themselves in and build partnerships.

Reporter: Five wins on the trot - is everything going to plan and you're finding different ways to win and doing it quite impressively.

Meg: I'm not sure what the plan is. It's changing all the time. I guess we you know, we've seen throughout this World Cup that there are a lot of great teams and anyone can win on any day. So, you can't come in and expect to win. We obviously want to win every game that we play, but we understand it's going to be challenging. There's some world class teams out there who really get up to play against us and that's exciting for our group to be able to try and match that and make sure we bring our best every game.

We want to make sure we're improving each game that we play. You know, that's what tournament play is about. You want to be peaking at the right time and I feel like we're doing that. We've had different people contribute at different times which we need. You can't rely on one or two players. So I feel like across a group we've had some great contributions and everybody feels in a good spot but we have to continue to get better and put that sort of perfect game together. That's what we're searching for. And we've got a couple more games in this round to make sure that we do that.

Reporter: And just finally, it gets a bit lost because of all the drama was late in the game but Darcy Brown had another three wicket haul – what do you make of the performance and appetite?

Meg: Yeah she's a young growing girl so she needs her food, so if she's just going to go like that. I think she should have a 750 gram steak before every game – she has been great for us. She's coming in bowling fast and taking early wickets and we've seen in this tournament if you can do that you can put teams under pressure. So she's keeping it really simple. But it's really exciting to watch and hopefully she can continue to do that.

Reporter: Can you just - obviously making the semifinals of the World Cup is a really big deal, they don't come around very often and the hard to win – how do you feel to put yourself in this position?

Meg: Yeah, I think as a group we’re really excited – World Cups are very difficult to play. And we've seen there's been a lot of upsets throughout this tournament already. So every game is a challenge. It's you make each game and you need to make sure you're adapting. So now we've run differently every time which I think is really important because you need to put yourself in different positions to make sure that when they do go to the semis that you're prepped and ready to go. So while enjoying this win, it's a win against an exceptional team who are very dangerous. So you need to make sure that you sort of take a moment to sort of take it all in I think and enjoy wins like this because they're all very difficult but we’ll refocus but yeah certainly very happy tangent.

Reporter: I just want to ask you about Beth Mooney and just what she adds to this line up to have someone who can come in in that situation under pressure and play the way she did at the end today?

Meg: Yeah She's very flexible. We've seen through this tournament that she's played some knocks under the pump and we've been through if not many and been able to sort of dig us out of that and then to come in tonight and as I said like she really took the pressure off me she said that that's what she was going to do and just to get a couple boundaries way early in the innings sort of certainly calms me down. I think the dugout as well. So, you know, we need to have flexibility within our lineup and to be able to adapt to the different conditions that we face. And I think Moons has really shown throughout the tournament that she's capable of doing that and that's sort of the blueprint for our middle order is to be able to come in and do the job required.

Reporter: Just want to know your thoughts about the cut shot- you really like playing that shot and it has brought you sort of mixed rewards in this tournament. You got out playing that shot a few times. How do you sort of go about recalibrating your mindset to playing that shot once you know that it's not coming off the way you want to and in general, how do you keep bettering that shot knowing you have already scored truckloads of runs off that one stroke?

Meg: It's something I've thought a lot about heading into this game – obviously I got out sort of similarly the couple of games beforehand and I guess the answer is just to play it better. You know I've executed it pretty well tonight, on the most part and then you know every time I get a touch lazy or don't wait for it enough, then I can get into trouble, but certainly not a shot. I'm going to start playing it, it does give me a lot of runs and it's an area of strength for me but I think there's always ways that you can improve and I need to make sure that I'm being clinical with that all the time because there are fielders there, I can get it through the field, but they will be good there if I don’t get it right. So it's a good challenge and I'm looking forward to seeing that the rest of the tournament.

Reporter: The bowlers bowled 24 wides, so what did you make of the conditions?

Meg: Yeah it was swinging a bit, which was great. Clearly, we would love to bowl less wides. That’s an area where I think we can get better but I think as a whole we tried to be quite aggressive with the ball and sometimes we missed today I think in the field as well. We probably a bit flattened fumbly which sort of helped, sort of contributed to sort of the fielding that we had within a group but it's an area to improve, but the great thing is we're able to win them, we're not quite getting it perfect and you know, to be able to get over the line against a really good team and know that we've got room to get better, I think is exciting for the group and we'll work as hard as we can to make sure we're getting better at everything that we need to.

Reporter: From the outside you know as an observer, if you look at the chases like these for the Australian team, sometimes it feels like it's almost just a matter of time before you guys win the game. Is this how you feel as well as a team? Always know that it's just a matter of time you go through and finish the chase?

Meg: We have a lot of confidence in our batting group, but it's a long batting order. We've got a lot of depth in that area. And I think we've seen throughout this tournament in particular that if you can get some really good partnerships at the top and build a good base, then anything's possible, sort of towards the back end. So you know whether we're sitting or chasing, we want our top four to be doing the majority of the work and having a set batter going into the last few overs makes a big difference. So that was the aim today. You know, we felt like we had it under control the whole time. I think the fact that Healy and Haynes got us off to a bit of a flyer, gave us a bit of room to move in the middle. You know they got the run rate under control right from the start. And that just allows players to come in and play with freedom and get themselves set if they need to. So yeah, I think it was a good sort of blueprint for a chase of that score. It was tricky, it was about power, I think but, you know, partnerships and sort of building that good base. I think is what's worked for us and we need to continue to do that.