How two young guns have come a long way
Stars better for the journey
The Commonwealth Bank Southern Stars will look back on their first series against Pakistan with fond memories.
Not only did they beat the touring side in all one-day internationals and T20s, but they did so in an emphatic way.
With injured players Holly Ferling and Ellyse Perry unable to send down their lightning bolts, the Aussie attack still stepped up to restrict the promising Pakistani side and wickets were shared among all bowlers. Even debutant Kristen Beams fitted in nicely, picking up her first wickets in Australian colours.
The performances in both the ODIs and T20s showed that there was no single standout, with seven different players winning the Player of the Match award.
Meg Lanning led from the front with the bat but could do with a little more practice on winning the toss while Nicole Bolton looks to have cemented her position as Australian’s opener in the longer format, and she won the Player of the Series for the ODIs.
This series marked a new era behind the stumps, with Alyssa Healy the No.1 keeper.
Keepers are sometimes forgotten when discussing key performances, but Healy’s skills behind the stumps were a standout and turned many chances into dismissals.
I could probably go through everyone in the Australian squad and highlight their performances, but I would like to focus on two specific players.
Despite being relatively young, in terms of age, both have already experienced the highs and lows of international cricket.
Delissa Kimmince was recalled to the Southern Stars this year after making her debut for Australia in 2008, aged 18. Her performance throughout this tour has shown that she is back to her best with both bat and ball.
Kimmince contributed with the bat at the top of the order and was the second highest wicket taker for the Australians in the T20 series.
I still remember her first tour, when we travelled to New Zealand. You could see how passionate and excited she was about her cricket, and she captured every moment in a scrapbook.
Soon after that tour, Kimmince started to struggle with confidence and put too much pressure on herself to perform every time she crossed the rope.
The 2009 World Cup, held in Sydney, was her breaking point.
Not only did she have to room with me and deal with my messiness, but she began to hate the game that had once brought her so much joy.
“I knew if I didn’t walk away when I did I would hate it forever,” she said.
Instead of cricket she played soccer, travelled overseas and never followed the performances of her former team-mates.
She needed a complete break from cricket.
It was only when she played a couple of county games while travelling that she remembered how much she loved the game.
"It was easier there - no expectations, no training and no pressure," a relaxed Kimmince recalled.
After a three-season hiatus, she came back to the Konica Minolta Queensland Fire in the 2012-13 season and still remembers playing her first round and thinking ‘what am I doing?’.
The difference in Kimmince was her mindset - she wasn’t going to put too much pressure on herself anymore. She came up with a simple formula that once she got out she would give herself time to reflect on her dismissal until the boundary rope and then would move on.
“You can’t perform every day. You have to enjoy the success of your team-mates despite a poor performance (yourself),” she said.
When Kimmince received the call up to the Southern Stars after a six-year absence, she reflected on where she had come from and didn’t let the excitement overwhelm her.
Elyse Villani, on the other hand, didn't have quite as long a gap between her representative duties. She was selected to open in the 2010 World T20 in West Indies and then played every match throughout that tournament, but soon found herself on the outer.
Having gone from being part of a winning World Cup team to being dropped and then losing her CA contract, Villani remembers the hurt.
“I was pretty devastated because up until then things just seemed to be happening for me and I had never envisaged a life not playing cricket for Australia,” she said.
“Trying to get back to that level consumed me a bit after that and was detrimental to my cricket, as I no longer felt that representing Victoria was good enough and I was close to being dropped there as well.”
Similar to Kimmince, Villani did some soul searching overseas, and just like Kimmince, a few games of county cricket also reminded her the reason why she played cricket, and it certainly wasn’t about representing her country.
The biggest change for her was mentally, as she felt she wasn’t ready for international cricket when first selected. Her focus now was to stay in the moment when batting.
While her re-selection into the Southern Stars saw her sit on the sideline for two tours, she just enjoyed being around the team. It wasn’t until her unbeaten 90 in Bangladesh against Pakistan that she finally believed that she could play at the highest level.
And boy, she hasn’t disappointed since!
Her performances throughout the T20 series against Pakistan saw her win Player of the Series and score a staggering 181 runs at the same average.
For both Kimmince and Villani, the pressure at the top initially was too much and, upon reflection, neither felt mentally prepared to cope with the demands of international cricket.
However, once they gained some clarity in their own ability and confidence they haven’t looked back.
With players such as these and the usual suspects, the Southern Stars are a force to be reckoned with.