The red-hot World Cup favourites will be without their star allrounder again in a World Cup semifinal.
Ellyse Perry has been ruled out of Wednesday’s women’s cricket playoff encounter in Wellington against the West Indies (11am start) with a back injury.
Their opponents, meanwhile, will also be without a key player. West Indies confirmed 58-ODI spinner Afy Fletcher would miss the match after testing positive for Covid-19. Young allrounder Mandy Mangru – in New Zealand as a travelling reserve – has been drafted into the squad.
The 31-year-old Perry also missed the semifinal and final of the Twenty20 World Cup in Australia in 2020, in which the hosts triumphed, with an injured hamstring.Perry missed Australia’s final round-robin match of the 2022 World Cup versus Bangladesh last week after appearing to suffer the injury while fielding in her team’s previous game against South Africa.
“We’ll go in without her tomorrow and we’ll keep assessing her if we are to progress in the tournament,” Australian captain Meg Lanning said on Tuesday.
“So, unfortunate for her and the team, obviously, a big blow but we feel like we’ve got some good depth to be able to cover it and we’re going to have to do that tomorrow.”
“She hasn’t done a lot [of training] over the past week, to be fair. She batted a little bit in the nets yesterday and felt okay, but she certainly just wasn’t in a position, unfortunately, to be able to perform at the level needed tomorrow,” Lanning said. “So, that was why we’ve made the call on that today.”
Lanning is hopeful Perry, who averages 50.02 with the bat from 127 ODIs and has also taken 161 wickets at 24.90, would be fit to play in Sunday’s final should Australia win at the Basin Reserve on Wednesday. South Africa will meet defending champions England in the second semifinal on Thursday in Christchurch.“We haven’t looked too far ahead. We will keep assessing her as we go if we are to progress but the team and the squad is very focused on tomorrow and making sure that we’re putting out our best game because everything else is irrelevant, to be honest.
“I’m sure there’s work going on in the background to try and get her up to play if we were to get through but from a playing-group perspective and coaching staff, we’re just really focused on tomorrow and the players that are going to be able to go out there and perform.”