Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Ellyse Perry is not one to dwell on past disappointments so Australia’s T20 World Cup final defeat by West Indies back in 2016 has little relevance as she heads into the closing stages of this year’s tournament.
The two nations come face to face in the semi-finals at the Oval on Tuesday night (AEST) with Perry more concerned with maintaining the Aussies’ red-hot streak that has kept them as firm tournament favourites.
Perry, one of the few survivors from the Australian team beaten by eight wickets that day in Kolkata, has been in impressive form.
Having hit back-to-back half-centuries, her first and second at the Women’s T20 World Cup, Perry is only looking forward.
She said: “We don’t want that kind of bad juju. I mean, what’s that, 10 years ago? The game has changed so much in that period of time. And I just think like you cannot pull things, can’t even pull things from last match because it’s crazy how sport works.
“We’ve played each other quite a lot in the last couple of months. We actually had a tour to the West Indies earlier this year. We’ve played each other in a warm-up match, so we’re sort of quite familiar with each other at the moment.”
They’ve got some tremendously talented and dangerous players with a lot of experience. So it will be a great challenge for us. It’s a quick turnaround too at a different venue, so I think we’re really looking forward to it.”
Ash Gardner, who shared a100-run partnership with Perry in Australia’s six-wicket group stage win over India on Sunday, has some inside knowledge of West Indies, having played alongside explosive all-rounder Deandra Dottin for the Gujarat Giants.
Gardner said: “West Indies are a completely different threat (to India). They’ve got a lot of class and a lot of firepower within their team.
“Also a lot of experience, obviously led brilliantly by Hayley Matthews, who is a player that can take away a game pretty quickly. But then you look at someone like Deandra Dottin, she’s a threat in all three phases of the game.
“She’s a fantastic player. I’ve had the privilege of playing with her, and seeing how she goes about her cricket, she’s so fearless in the way that she approaches it, which sometimes can be quite scary because she can flick a switch pretty quickly.”
England face South Africa in the second semi-final on Friday (AEST), with the final three days later.
