Mooney sings praises of key Aussie role players at T20WC

Australia has looked practically unbeatable on their way to the ICC Women's T20 World Cup final.

In contrast to their semi-final opponent the West Indies, where captain Hayley Matthews lamented too few standout performers, the Aussies have had no shortage of key individual contributions, right throughout their tournament campaign.

It comes as Australia celebrates their eight-wicket win over the Caribbean side at The Oval in the T20 World Cup's first semi-final; now awaiting to see whether their opponent in the decider will be England or South Africa.

Georgia Wareham and Ashleigh Gardner have each delivered for Australia in both key disciplines, while Georgia Voll's clean top order striking has helped Beth Mooney to excel with the bat playing her game.

Ellyse Perry has proven to be the match-winner on multiple occasions already, but it was Gardner's 2/13 from four overs with the ball, plus an unbeaten 35 from 20 deliveries to help seal the chase, that clinched the Aussie all-rounder's Player of the Match honours.

"She's been a critical player for us for a long period of time," Mooney said of Gardner post-game.

"She obviously batted beautifully against India at Lord's the other day. She gets a lot of confidence from that. And I think we saw that today with the ball. She bowled beautifully and took wickets at critical times. So we know the threat that she poses to other teams, and we're very lucky to have her at our disposal in our team.

"Certainly going into the pointy end of the competition, it's always good to have all your players in good form."

Georgia Wareham has been an ace up Australia's sleeve as well, boasting the highest batting strike rate at the tournament along with the second-lowest bowling economy rate. 

"Wolf (Wareham) has been unreal," Mooney continued. 

"Not too many cricketers float around the world stage having the skill set that she does and the nous of the game ... the calmness. So it's probably been a little bit of time in the making for Wolf. I think she's been given different roles along the way but really come into her own in that number six role with the bat especially, and also just nailing it with the ball.

"She's the all-round package—Wolf—bat, ball, field, great temperament, great human. So another player that is probably the envy of world cricket, and she's in our team. So I'm very lucky that I get to have the best seat in the house, both behind the stumps when I'm keeping and obviously seeing her do her thing with the bat. So hopefully she's got one more very good game in her and can help us get on the right side of the result on Sunday."

And while Mooney has been a pillar of consistency at the top of the order, the power play hitting of Georgia Voll has helped the keeper-batter flourish even more.

"Yeah, we've discussed that that's a pretty important phase of the game to try and attack, and obviously with Georgia Voll at the top of the order, it makes it pretty easy to do that," Mooney continued.

"From a personal point of view, I've certainly got the control and the skills to be able to take the game on a little bit earlier and played a lot of cricket and have a lot of data behind me to back up the fact that I can make good decisions and know what I'm doing every now and then. It's not going to come off all the time, but I think that's the way forward in T20 cricket is to really attack the power play if you can and adjust where you need to along the way.

"Batting with Alyssa Healy for a long time and now batting with Georgia Voll, it does make it easier to get ahead of the rate, whether you're chasing a lower total or a big one."

Ellyse Perry retired hurt in the early stages of her batting innings.

But it's been ratified it was purely a precautionary measure taken, amid Australia's comfortable situation chasing the West Indies' total of 125/7 with relative ease - Australia reached the mark with seven overs to spare.

The final, against either England or South Africa, is at Lord's in London this Sunday.