Flawless final a perfect gift for family and friends

It was as 86,174 fans found their seats at the MCG, as the final strains of Katy Perry's rousing voice faded in the afternoon sun, and before the even sharper report of ball flying from Alyssa Healy's bat that a small group gathered within a corporate suite within the heaving ground's Ponsford Stand.

This was the viewing area set aside for immediate family and close friends of Australia's women's cricket team, and the contrast between their tilt at the world T20 crown on home turf and their prior success in 2018 could not have been more glaring.

When Meg Lanning and her team previously lifted the biennial trophy at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium on the Caribbean island of Antigua, the sum total of Australia's crowd support was seven among an attendance of almost 10,000 people.

In addition to Lanning's parents Wayne and Sue (who have attended every World Cup their daughter has played since 2012) that day was Elyse Villani's mother as well as three of the batter's friends and the sister of an Australian journalist, who was attending her first cricket international.

As Wayne Lanning noted this afternoon, before Australia set about demolishing India to win their fifth women's T20 World Cup title from seven iterations of the tournament since 2009, it was difficult to reconcile the difference in both atmosphere and expectation from that Antigua evening.

"This is just unbelievable, to think they could get around 90,000 people here today is amazing," he told cricket.com.au,

"It just shows how far the game has come in the last few years.

"You used to go to club cricket here in Australia and you might get three or four parents, and perhaps a couple of other friends to watch a game.

"It's certainly progressed over time as the game has become more professional, and that's reflected in the numbers that you get to WBBL and other matches.

"But this is not something I ever envisaged would happen, that they would play in front of a crowd like this at home."

Image Id: BAE91555FAAB4391B38975A59CF6C35E Image Caption: Wayne (left) and Sue (right) with daughter Meg Lanning after the 2014 World Cup final in Bangladesh // Getty

While Lanning's parents have been at every Australia game of this World Cup campaign – they hadn't intended to travel to Perth for the Sri Lanka match but decided they should be at Meg's 100th appearance for her country given they missed her T20 debut in New Zealand in 2010 – they remain something of a minority.

As the 2018 experience showed, travelling overseas to watch the team play can prove difficult against work and other commitments at home and the first women's T20 World Cup on Australia soil provided a rare but welcome chance for players to perform for and thank their nearest and dearest.

Vice-captain Rachael Haynes parents, Ian and Jenni, were at the nerve-jangling, rain-affected semi-final at the SCG last week but that was the only match of this campaign they had attended.

So they were thrilled to have the opportunity to see their daughter representing their country in a World Cup, an experience they had not previously enjoyed given Australia has not hosted a global women's tournament since 2009, months before Haynes made her international debut.

"This is the first World Cup final we've been to, so it's a great experience for us to see Rachael playing on the big stage," said Ian Haynes, whose previous experience of a full-house at the MCG was as a lifelong Western Bulldogs fan watching them win the Australian Football League grand final in 2016.

"It's quite incredible, you could never have dreamed there would be a day like this.

"She deserves everything the gets, she works really hard for everything she's done.

"It's been incredible to watch her journey over the years."

Image Id: 47C1DD6D8C434068A8F9D9DC848F0A1D Image Caption: Jenni and Ian Haynes last year // Getty

Wayne Lanning also recalled thinking that, no sooner had the celebrations of the 2018 win begun in Antigua than the realisation of what would be expected of his daughter's team two years later began to dawn.

Previously, the men's T20 tournament (last staged in 2016) and the women's equivalent were staged concurrently.

Confirmation that Australia would host the men's and women's T20 World Cups in 2020, but as standalone events at opposite ends of the year, ensured the defending women's champions and dominant outfit of their era would carry a huge burden of expectation.

"There's been pressure on them ever since it was announced it was going to be here on International Women's Day," he said.

"We knew when we were in Antigua that was the date they were looking at playing this final.

"So the pressure for them to be here today has been enormous, because I see it every other day in terms of what it's done to Meg.

"She plays it down, but I know that it’s been something she's been really conscious of and looking forward to."

Image Id: D2CF93B86C0C487E870D6C534AB76D12 Image Caption: Beth Mooney's sister watches on // Cricket Network

Villani, who was part of Australia's T20 champion teams in 2010, 2014 and 2018 and was also among the 20 or more family members and close friends gathered in the MCG enclosure today, remembers feeling more than a little daunted by the prospect of being host, favourite and drawcard in 2020.

"When Cricket Australia put forward the idea of a standalone World Cup, I know I was pretty apprehensive because I thought it would be a great to keep the men's and women's tournament together when it was played in Australia," Villani said today.

"But I guess I didn't see what they saw in terms of how far the game had come, and how well a home World Cup final would be received.

"To have a standalone World Cup and to attract the crowd we have, it's been absolutely phenomenal.

"To be honest, way beyond anything I could have imagined."

Villani smiled when asked if she felt nervous on behalf of her former teammates in the lead-up to what proved a consummate Australia performance, pointing out she felt pleasantly relaxed given the outcome was far beyond anything she could conjure from her corporate vantage point.

She simply hoped – presciently, as it turned out – that having endured an anxious, stuttering run to the title decider the home team rode the wave of support that has risen around them and played with the freedom and skill that has characterised their rise to the crest of the women's game.

And it's as much the way they play the game as the results they achieve that explains why they drew the biggest official crowd to a standalone women's game in cricket's history.

"This event has certainly been bigger than anyone has experienced before, and a lot of the support they've built is because they've been very successful over a lengthy period of time," Villani said.

"But there's been many more games on television and with the Women's Big Bash going from strength to strength as well, you find there's a lot of heroes in this team for boys and girls growing up.

"So to see the Australian public get behind the girls is absolutely outstanding."

What Villani can't foresee is what such a comprehensive win on such an auspicious evening might mean for women's sport – and not solely for women's cricket – in Australia and throughout the world from today hence.

"I can't quantify that because I could never have imagined today being the event that it has turned out to be," she said, looking out at the throng that all-but filled international cricket's birthplace.

"I'm not an overly imaginative person unfortunately, so to be able to think about what it can mean for the future is pretty unfathomable.

"But it's certainly a very exciting prospect.

"And it's opening a lot of doors."

2020 ICC Women's T20 World Cup

February 21:India beat Australia by 17 runs

February 24: Australia beat Sri Lanka by five wickets

February 27: Australia beat Bangladesh by 86 runs 

March 2: Australia beat New Zealand by four runs

March 5: Australia beat South Africa by five runs

March 8: Australia beat India by 85 runs

For a full list of all World Cup fixtures, click HERE

* The Final will be broadcast on Fox Cricket, Kayo and the Nine Network