Tayla Vlaeminck hopeful of T20 World Cup selection after superb spell vs India ‘A’

Brisbane, Aug 11 (SocialNews.XYZ) Tearaway quick Tayla Vlaeminck is hopeful that her efforts will pave the way for her to get a berth in Australia’s squad for this year’s Women’s T20 World Cup. On Sunday, Tayla bowled a ferocious spell of 1-6 from her four overs, where she bowled impressively as Australia A took a seven-wicket win in the third and final T20 against India A.

"I feel like I've had a really good pre-season this year, and I've been lucky just to be up in Brisbane for what it feels like probably three months now. I've been on turf all winter, and had a pretty uninterrupted preseason as well.

"So I feel like I'm in a good space, and then hopefully I can just, touch wood, keep that going and get into the New Zealand series and hopefully on to a World Cup," Tayla was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au after the match ended.

Tayla is yet to play a World Cup match for Australia since 2018, as a serious foot injury led to her being ruled out of the eve of the Women’s T20 World Cup in 2020 at home. That same injury also kept her out of Australia’s victorious campaigns in the 2022 Women’s ODI World Cup, 2022 Commonwealth Games and 2023 Women’s T20 World Cup.

"The last couple years that’s probably been the goal, to play a World Cup. I’m trying not to think about it too much, but it’s hard not to think about it. That was the reasoning behind not wanting to go to The Hundred, feeling like I could control a lot more of what I was doing if I was around here in a familiar environment with familiar staff. It’s leading to hopefully getting on to a World Cup, touch wood, but at the moment, it seems to be going really well," she added.

Though Tayla has been named in the 50-over Australia A squad that will play three matches against India at Mackay in the coming week, she might not play all matches as her workload will be managed ahead of Australia’s T20I series against New Zealand next month, as that serves as the chance for reigning champions to fine-tune their World Cup preparation.

"Obviously, I'd love to be out there playing all the time, and hopefully in a year or two's time I will be. For me to be able to do what I can do out there, run in and try and bowl as fast as I can, it's one of those ones where I just can't play all the time at the moment. I'm slowly starting to wrap my head around it, but I hate running drinks."

Tahlia signed off by talking about the players who stood out in the 3-0 T20 series win for Australia ‘A’ over India ‘A’. "I think we made it pretty clear at the start when we first came here as a group that we really wanted to put on a display, and put (India A) to the sword in the first game."

"I feel like we did that really well and then we just continued the momentum throughout. Tahlia Wilson's been unreal at the top of the order for us the whole time and (Tahlia McGrath) T-Mac's been really good in the last couple of games as well."

Source: IANS