Australia out to cap off super summer

Australia will be out to put the icing on a near-perfect summer of cricket when they take on New Zealand in the third and final Commonwealth Bank ODI at Melbourne’s Junction Oval on Sunday.

Since Australia’s women kicked off the international season against New Zealand at North Sydney Oval on September 29, they’ve enjoyed an almost unblemished run in both limited-overs formats, losing just one T20I game during the group stage of the T20 World Cup.

“It’s something we’re spoken about as a group, over the last year or so, really trying to finish off series well,” Australia captain Meg Lanning said on Friday.

“We know it’s going to be difficult, New Zealand are a great side and they’ve shown throughout this series that they’ve got a lot of strengths, so we’ve been focusing on making sure we turn up tomorrow with a really good mindset to know we need to play well.

“We feel like we’re in really good form and we’ve got confidence, but unless we turn up tomorrow and play our best cricket then we won’t get the result we want.

“We’re very keen to finish off the summer well.”

Australia claimed a clean sweep over their trans-Tasman rivals in the three-match T20I series, before travelling to Malaysia where they defeated Pakistan in all three ODIs and three T20Is.

From there, they travelled directly to the Antigua to begin their World T20 campaign.

A wash-out against England in their first warm-up delayed preparations temporarily, but it was back to business as they found their groove with a 46-run win over South Africa in their second practice match.

Alyssa Healy’s stunning run of form led the way for the Australians as they defeated Pakistan by 52 runs in their first official match of the tournament. Victories over Ireland (nine wickets) and New Zealand (33 runs) cemented their spot in the play-offs, before the sole hiccup of their season to date – a 48-run defeat to India.

It meant Australia had to meet hosts West Indies in the semi-finals, but there was no repeat of the 2016 decider they lost, as the Aussies romped to a 71-run victory, setting up a showdown with England in the final.

There, an all-round excellent bowling display limited their Ashes rivals to 105, a target Australia chased with ease to claim their fourth T20 World Cup trophy.

After a break for the fourth edition of the Rebel WBBL and the culmination of the 50-over WNCL season, it was back in the green and gold for the current ODI series against New Zealand, where Australia ensured their 19-year hold on the Rose Bowl would continue when they took an unassailable 2-0 lead after the first two matches of the series.

Now, they have a chance to bookend their summer with a second clean sweep against the White Ferns in Sunday’s final ODI.

“We’ve had a great summer, but we want to finish it well,” Lanning said.

“It would be a little disappointing if we didn’t play well tomorrow and that was the end point of the summer.”

Australia’s winning run isn’t confined to this summer, either; across the past 12 months they’ve dropped just two of 25 matches, with the other defeat coming during the T20I tri-series in India last March.

The third and final ODI on Sunday, beginning 10.50am local time, will be broadcast live on Fox Sports and the Seven Network and can be live streamed via Kayo, with news, scores and highlights on cricket.com.au and the CA Live App.