Fearless Gardner believes Australia can end trophy drought

Australia vice-captain Ashleigh Gardner is channelling the fearless teenager who burst onto the international scene nine years ago as Australia gear up for the ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2026 in England, with the all-rounder looking to find her best form.

Gardner will become the seventh Australian woman to play 100 T20Is when Australia face West Indies in St Vincent on Thursday, a milestone that arrives at a critical moment in the women's game's calendar, with the marquee tournament just weeks away and Australia looking to end back-to-back semi-final exits in their recent appearances at ICC events, losing to hosts India in the ICC Women’s World Cup 2025 and a loss in the same stage of the 2024 Women’s T20 World Cup to South Africa.

"I was someone that had no fear, and I guess as I've gotten older and more mature, I've gained more fear in the way that I approach life and just cricket in general," Gardner said to Cricket Australia ahead of her landmark match.

"It's trying to harness a little bit of that, not stepping over the line to just being completely reckless, but for me, the brand of cricket that I play, I try and take the game on. So when I'm under the pump, really trying to harness that and channel that."

"That's when I'm playing my best cricket."

The 28-year-old acknowledged that translating her outstanding ODI form, three centuries and three fifties at an average of 45.94 since the start of 2024, into the shortest format has been an ongoing challenge.

"In this format, my role within the middle-order is challenging at times. You might come in when the team's on top, or you come in when we're not on top. It's summing up the situation really quickly, and finding my gears really fast, and it's probably something that I haven't done overly well in this format for a prolonged period of time."

Gardner has averaged 25.11 in T20Is for Australia, playing in the middle-order.

The West Indies series represents Australia's last major assignment before the World Cup, and Gardner sees echoes of a pivotal period in the side's history that ultimately transformed them into the dominant force in women's cricket.

"If I look back at that 2017 World Cup that we lost, we were just playing really timid cricket, and then we had that evolution of, 'let's try and take the game on, let's be really fearless'. We've bought into that ever since then, and it's almost an unwritten rule when you come into this side, that's the brand of cricket that you play."

Gardner, who is now co-vice-captain alongside Tahlia McGrath under new skipper Sophie Molineux, said belief in the squad's current personnel was at the core of Australia's World Cup ambitions.

"I think just having a lot of belief and confidence that the personnel that are here are the right people to win those trophies. She had her own little imprint on the team through that Indian series, but now that she takes full reins, I'm super excited to see where she's going to take the team."

For Gardner personally, a strong World Cup campaign would represent the perfect capstone to a journey that began at the MCG nine years ago, when a 19-year-old with no fear walked out for her debut. A hundred games on, she knows exactly what she needs to recapture.

Australia Tour of West Indies schedule

First T20I: March 19, St Vincent
Second T20I: March 21, St Vincent
Third T20I: March 23, St Vincent

First ODI: March 27, St Kitts
Second ODI: March 29, St Kitts
Third ODI: April 2, St Kitts