Gardner winding back the clock ahead of milestone match

Ashleigh Gardner is summoning her fearless teenage self ahead of her 100th T20I appearance, as she looks to recapture her best with the bat in the shortest format.

Gardner will become the seventh woman to play 100 T20Is in the green and gold when Australia take the field against West Indies in St Vincent on Thursday (9:30am Friday AEDT), in what looms as a pivotal series ahead of the T20 World Cup.

The 28-year-old arrived on the international scene in 2017 with a reputation as an explosive batter, picked to play for her country aged 19 after a breakthrough WBBL campaign.

Across the nine years since, Gardner has evolved into a true allrounder and one of the world's leading off-spinners, particularly in the one-day game, where she sits at No.1 in the ICC's allrounder rankings.

She has also developed into one of the world's leading ODI batters, and since the start of 2024 has averaged 45.94 in the middle-order for Australia, scoring three centuries and three fifties.

Speaking in St Vincent on Wednesday, however, Gardner admitted to a degree of frustration that she had not been able to produce the same success with the bat in T20Is across the same period, which saw her score 217 runs at an average of 18 and strike rate of 108.5, passing fifty once.

"In this format, my role within the middle-order is challenging at times, you might come in when the team's on top, or you come in when we're not on top," Gardner said.

"It's summing up the situation really quickly, and finding my gears really fast as well, and it's probably something that I haven't done overly well in this format for a prolonged period of time.

"It's just trying to find my feet really quickly, assessing conditions ... making sure that I'm sticking to what the team needs from me in those situations as well and also just not shying away from what my strengths are, and just keep being brave with the decisions that I make."

To help unlock that free-flowing approach, Gardner has cast her mind back to the budding Australian player who hammered a record-breaking 47-ball ton at North Sydney Oval in WBBL|03.

"I was someone that had no fear, and I guess as I've gotten older and more mature, I've gained more fear in the way that I approach life and just cricket in general," she continued.

"It's trying to harness a little bit of that (fearlessness) – not stepping over the line to just being completely reckless – but for me, the brand of cricket that I play, I try and take the game on.

"So when I'm under the pump, really trying to harness that and channel that, which at times is really hard to do, because if you don't have a lot of confidence, that's the last thing you want to do ... but for me, that's when I'm playing my best cricket."

Reflecting on her T20I debut against New Zealand at the MCG in 2017, Gardner admitted to feeling raw and unsure of her readiness for international cricket.

One hundred matches later, she is now Australian co-vice-captain alongside Tahlia McGrath and helping to usher in a new era under the leadership of Sophie Molineux.

The trio had a taste of their new roles in the three T20Is against India last month, before handing the reins back to Alyssa Healy for her international swansong across the ODIs and the Test.

"It's obviously a different dynamic, having two vice-captains, and then working with Soph – I've never played under Soph before, but I've known her for a very long time so it's seemed pretty seamless in a lot of ways, knowing that I've got a friendship that's already built for that," Gardner said.

"For me, it's just about, how do I support her, what does the team need from me, both on and off the field, and it's being able to work really closely with her.

"She had her own little imprint on the team through that Indian series, but now that she takes full reins, I'm super excited to see where she's going to take the team."

When Gardner arrived in the national side in 2017, Australia had suffered a T20 World Cup semi-final defeat a year prior, and would go on to make an early exit at the ODI version just months later.

They now find themselves in a similar position, with an empty ICC trophy cabinet following back-to-back semi-final exits.

In 2017, the defeats sparked an upheaval as Australia completely reshaped their style of play.

In 2026, there has been no reckoning to that same scale, however Gardner can see some parallels that could aid Australia in their bid to end their trophy drought at the upcoming T20 World Cup in England in June.

"I think just having a lot of belief and confidence that the personnel that are here are the right people to win those trophies," Gardner said.

"If I look back at that 2017 World Cup that we lost, we were just playing really timid cricket, and then we had that evolution of, 'let's try and take the game on, let's be really fearless'.

"And we've bought into that ever since then, and it's almost an unwritten rule when you come into this side, that's the brand of cricket that you play.

"It's probably trying to harness that (again) and just win those small moments.

"Reflecting on the couple of semi-finals that we lost (in 2024 and 2025), when a player got going, we just found it really hard to pull back and whether that comes down to skills, I don't think so.

"When we've had our backs up against the wall and we've won those games, we've just won those small moments, so it's probably just trying to do that for longer periods of time."

Australia's tour of the West Indies 2026

First T20I: March 20, Arnos Vale, St Vincent, 9:30am AEDT (March 19, 6:30pm local)

Second T20I: March 22, Arnos Vale, St Vincent, 9:30am AEDT (March 21, 6:30pm local)

Third T20I: March 24, Arnos Vale, St Vincent, 9:30am AEDT (March 23, 6:30pm local

First ODI: March 28, Warner Park, St Kitts, 5am AEDT (March 27, 2pm local)

Second ODI: March 30, Warner Park, St Kitts, 5am AEDT (March 29, 2pm local)

Third ODI: April 3, Warner Park, St Kitts, 5am AEDT (April 2, 2pm local)

West Indies squad: Hayley Matthews (c), Chinelle Henry (vc), Aaliyah Alleyne, Eboni Brathwaite, Shemaine Campbelle, Jahzara Claxton, Deandra Dottin, Afy Fletcher, Jannillea Glasgow, Shawnisha Hector, Zaida James, Qiana Joseph, Mandy Mangru, Karishma Ramharack, Stafanie Taylor

Australia squad: Sophie Molineux (c), Ashleigh Gardner (vc), Tahlia McGrath (vc), Darcie Brown, Nicola Carey, Kim Garth, Lucy Hamilton, Alana King, Phoebe Litchfield, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Georgia Voll, Georgia Wareham, Tahlia Wilson

All matches to be broadcast on ESPN via Disney+ only