The moment the Stars turned it around

It started on a windy Wellington Tuesday.

The Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars had just fallen to a five-wicket defeat to New Zealand, a loss that sealed their third consecutive T20 series defeat in the space of seven months.

With the Women's World T20 a little over a month away, the three-time defending champions were forced to accept things needed to change – and fast – if they were to be serious contenders for title number four.

Their next result was more than a mere consolation win against the White Ferns in New Plymouth. 

The 17-run win turned around a trend of poor performances when batting first, offering the Southern Stars a welcome boost of confidence ahead of the tournament in India.

Their journey through the World T20 has been far from perfect, but as Australia prepare to meet West Indies in Sunday's final in Kolkata, coach Matthew Mott pinpointed the disappointment against New Zealand as the watershed moment for his team.

"I think as a group, we had a real turning point in Wellington," Mott told cricket.com.au.

"We lost the T20 series there and while we were playing decent cricket, New Zealand really put us on notice that just drifting along and not playing 100 per cent meant we were not going to compete against the best teams in the world.

"I think it started there.

Quick Single: Belief and experience sees Stars through

"From that day forward, our attitude to training, warm-ups, everything has been first rate.

"It's been really fun to be around the team this tour. It's been hard work and India is a tough place to tour at times, but the camaraderie in the group and the team togetherness been really great to witness."

It's not the first time Australia have been forced to fight in World T20 tournaments. They dropped group matches in 2012 and 2014, while their 2010 and 2012 finals were won by three- and four-run margins.

But their 2016 campaign could be their best fight back to date. 

After T20 series losses to England, India and then New Zealand, Australia made a shaky start against South Africa in Nagpur, falling to 3-9 before a rescue job from Alex Blackwell and Meg Lanning.

Three days later they were chastened by New Zealand at the same venue, collapsing to 4-4 and ultimately handed a six-wicket defeat.

Rather than losing faith, the results only strengthened Australia's resolve. Solid wins against Sri Lanka and Ireland followed, before a remarkable fighting semi-final performance against England, which kept their dreams of a 'four-peat' alive.

"It was a really good performance against England," Mott said. 

"As we thought, the Power Play was pretty critical and the start we got with the bat was a really positive one.

"It was a really gutsy win. A special tribute to Megan Schutt, if someone was ever going to get a player of the match performance for their fielding alone she would have come close last night.

"It was really inspirational and got everyone going. We saved a lot of runs in the field."

A showdown with West Indies now looms and Mott can still see areas of improvement the Southern Stars will need to work on if they want to claim an unprecedented fourth title at Eden Gardens on Sunday.

"I still want to see us stronger all through the innings.

"We've had patches but a perfect innings hasn't been there yet.

"We want to want to be able to put 150-plus on the board and with the bowling Power Play, we again didn’t get it right against England.

"We gave them too much width, so that's a definite area of improvement for the next couple of days.

"We need to get that right and come out in the final and put our best game together."