A NUMBER one ranking was a surprise welcome for the Australian Women’s Cricket Team that is working its way towards reclaiming a world title next month.

ICC rankings were updated late last week with Australia topping the teams T20 table, perfect timing ahead of the World T20 in West Indies in November.

Not much separates the top nations, with the Aussies just three points clear of New Zealand and England one point behind them.

That closeness is all the motivation they need to go into the tournament with a determination to dominate.

“We were a bit surprised with the number one,” said Australia coach Matthew Mott.

“ We know we’ve started to turn things around and play pretty well but it would have been pretty close between us and New Zealand, they’ve had a really good couple of years

“We’re excited to be number one; we want to stay there and there’s no better time than the T20 World Cup — they’re highly weighted points in that tournament ... It’s nice to be number one but the challenge is to cement that spot and kick on from the rest of the field.”

The team arrived in Malaysia on Sunday ahead of a series against Pakistan before they fly on to the Caribbean.

They will play three ODIs as part of the ICC Championship, then three T20s to prepare for the World Cup.

The Australians come in off their recent confidence-boosting T20 sweep of New Zealand, timed perfectly with the World T20 preparations.

Mott wants his charges to keep focus on the Pakistan series.

“The important thing we spoke about today is staying in the moment for us,” he said.

“ It’s really important that we don’t think too far ahead with the World Cup, which is an obvious trap to fall into.

“It’s a great series in its own right, we believe a lot in the ICC Championship and we’ll try to take as many points in the next couple of weeks as we possibly can and put ourselves ahead of other teams around us.”

Mott had no concerns about the switching between formats either.

Australia’s top order dominated throughout the New Zealand and the coach was pleased to have the longer format for his middle order batters to get some time in the middle.

“ODI cricket probably comes at a good time for us,” he said.

“Even though there’s a lot of batters in form, they probably didn’t get some balls into batters who are going to play a key role in the middle section of the innings for us in the T20 World Cup.

“Invariably ODI cricket will give that opportunity to a few of them and they’ll have a bit more time to just go out there and find their feet before they have to go too hard.”