Title : Godly Lanning resumes her place in the pantheon after smiting England
link : Godly Lanning resumes her place in the pantheon after smiting England
Godly Lanning resumes her place in the pantheon after smiting England
The Meg. In recent years there's been a pop culture resurgence for Carcharodon megalodon, the prehistoric plus-size forerunner to the great white shark.
The Meg trawls up from cinematic depths to unexpectedly plunder everyone on the surface, ruining the summer holidays of thousands. Out in Essex on Friday night, Australia's own Meg did much the same.
The highest ever score by a woman in a 20-over international. Only Aaron Finch, Glenn Maxwell and Hazratullah Zazai of Afghanistan have gone higher in the men's version. The fourth-fastest 100 in the women's game, reached from 51 balls before going to 133 not out by the close.
In the process. Lanning won the Women's Ashes series outright, propelling the highest Australian team score of 226 at more than 11 per over, then skippering as England lost nine wickets en route to 133 of their own. That's right: England's 11 players and Lanning had a tie.
This was beyond ruthless. It was a force of nature that England were hopeless to stop. Lanning was nondescript at first; out to the middle early after Alyssa Healy fell, watching from the far end while Beth Mooney made the early running.
Lanning picked up her first boundary leg-glancing a poor ball, her second from a boundary-line misfield, her third from an edge that ran fine.
Then in the sixth over she launched into English spinner Sophie Ecclestone and never looked back. She can't look back. Sharks don't have necks.
There were times over the past couple of years where appreciating Lanning involved a lot of looking back. She had burst onto the scene, looting runs from adolescence for four years before becoming captain aged 21. She celebrated that in the World T20 with a knock of 126 that was then the world record.
In one-day cricket she started with a ton in her second match and churned them out thereafter. Charlotte Edwards held the record of nine one-day centuries from her 191 games. Lanning broke her mark in 57.
She was far and away the best player in the world, by such a margin that it was pointless even discussing it. Amongst ourselves, some cricket writers started referring to her as God. It didn't seem a stretch.
But then the divine was made mortal through the simple means of the flesh. By which I mean, Lanning hurt her shoulder.
She tried to battle through it but even she couldn't dismiss tendons like she did bowlers. She batted through the 2017 World Cup with her elbow tucked up by her side, playing bottom-handed shovels across the line and running with that arm cinched in tight for protection.
It was no good. It couldn't go on. She was bowled for a duck in the semi-final, and Australia was knocked out by someone who could swing freely in Harmanpreet Kaur. Lanning faced facts and the surgeon's knife, sitting out the Ashes and the Big Bash season to follow.
While she was playing less than a year later, she wasn't the same. She was still a good player, no doubt, but not the Meg. The old dominance wasn't there. More careful, more hesitant. Fewer teeth. More fallible.
You hoped she was just finding her way, but you couldn't be sure. Would this be like Jeff Thomson before his shoulder, or The Strokes with Is This It, or Harper Lee with To Kill a Mockingbird? Would she be another glorious beginning that was never matched as time went on?
This season she kept working her way into the Women's Ashes. A score of 69 in a one-day win, with flashes of her old self. Her stolid 57 in Taunton, shrugging off a poor record in her scarce Test appearances.
In hindsight maybe this was the Meg circling.
Then on Friday in this T20 match: bang. Straight up from deep water. England never saw her coming.
Across 10 overs through the middle of the innings Lanning added 88 runs. Skipping down to spin to drive over cover, then darting back to pull the shorter balls that followed. Sweeping past sweepers. Taking 14 from an Ecclestone over, 21 from a Laura Marsh over, not afraid to go high over midwicket.
Against seam she was more elegant and just as deadly; square driving, back-foot punching, gliding deliberately fine with the very edge of her bat. Katherine Brunt was smoked on the cut and punished to fine leg for over-correcting.
Anya Shrubsole gave up 20 from an over, with sixes from a square flick and a booming straight drive that nearly took out a cameraman. Sixes from Nat Sciver and Brunt went over extra cover. There was nowhere Lanning couldn't hit.
By the end of the first innings the game was done. England were never coming back from that.
Success in sport is about taking control. After 20 overs in the field England were helpless. They had become subjects rather than participants. They were treading water waiting for the bite.
And with that, off the Meg went, back into the deep. Sated with time to rest, think and plot her next appearance. You won't be able to guess when that might be. But now we know the Meg is still hungry.
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