'Got closer than we would have liked but can’t complain' – Lanning reflects on win in T20I opener

Meg Lanning, the Australia Women captain, who led the chase with an unbeaten run-a-ball 54 was pleased with the six-wicket win, but admitted that the tourists hadn't planned to take the game so deep.

"We started off pretty well with the ball and to keep them to 106 is a pretty good effort, but we couldn’t quite get going with the bat," she said after the win on Saturday, 14 September. "It got closer than we would have liked but we can’t complain with a win first up."

West Indies Women, who had elected to bat first, stuttered right from the start when they lost both their openers in the first over. If not for captain Stafanie Taylor's 44 not out, the hosts would have ended up with a much lower total. Barring Sheneta Grimmond, none of the player touched 15 as the Australian bowlers led by Megan Schutt (3/31) dominated the proceedings.

In reply, Australia got off to a slow start and were made to work for the runs by the West Indies bowlers. With only a day's gap for the next T20I, Lanning wants her team to get their act together and perform better in the next game. "We don’t have very long," Lanning said. "We’ll review this game very well as we always do and work out what we need to do to improve and play a little bit better."

With the ICC Women's T20 World Cup 2020 only six months away, the defending champions will look to assess the performance with a critical eye and address the areas for improvement.

"We never really got going and no one ever came out and dominated, from either side to be fair, so whether that was the conditions or because we didn’t quite attack enough, we’ll look at that and hopefully come back [better] in the next game.

"All in all it’s a good result, but we’ve got a training session tomorrow which we’ll look at and try and get something out of," she added.

Lanning has been in exceptional form on the tour. She aggregated 179 from two innings in the one day internationals and finished as the second-highest run-scorer in the three-match series. With her 58* in the third ODI, she also became Australia Women's leading run-scorer across all formats. While the runs in first T20I didn't come as fast as the Australian skipper would have expected, she did well to stay there till the end and anchor the chase.

"I didn’t feel like I was batting very freely for the majority of my innings but once you get in and in a chase like that, it’s important you can bat through and see it to the end," she said. "I found myself over hitting at times or not going hard enough, but once you found that mid-range tempo with your bat swing that’s when you could get the best contact on the ball."

The second T20I will be played at the same venue on Monday, 16 September.