Western Australia Women’s coach Becky Grundy has identified decision-making with the bat under pressure as an area of improvement for her side after a challenging start to the WNCL season. 

Grundy’s side has lost its opening two matches at the WACA Ground against last season’s runner-up Queensland, with the West Aussies left searching for answers ahead of next week’s match against reigning champions New South Wales. 

In the opening match, WA lost by 64 runs after failing to chase Queensland’s target of 236 runs, then fell short again in the second match, failing to defend its total of 272 runs, handing the visitors a two-wicket win with 16 balls to spare.  

Bowlers Amy Edgar and Heather Graham are placed as the top two wicket-takers in the tournament, after taking seven and five wickets respectively in the first two matches. On the other hand, WA is struggling to have an impact with the bat, ranked fifth overall for total runs scored. 

Grundy says to get their first win of the season, being able to execute with both bat and ball is crucial. 

“At the end of the day, we’ve got to do both if we want to be where we want to be,” she told SportFM.

“There’s no overall preference. Runs on the board are always nice, but we have shown our ability to chase in the past. 

“We’re going to have to keep working through it. Decision-making when there’s pressure on is probably the challenge that we’ve had up until this point, but we’ve worked hard on it. 

“I’m hoping that it’s just the start and that we can display that over the season.” 

Former Queensland batter Mikayla Hinkley has settled in well at number three after shifting her position in the batting lineup this season, with scores of 56 and 57 placing her in the tournament’s top five run scorers. 

However, captain Chloe Piparo and all-rounder Heather Graham aren’t too far behind, with totals in the 90s keeping them ranked in the top 10. 

Grundy says less reliance on the openers in Piparo and Maddy Darke, who has had a tough start to her season, is needed from her side moving forward. 

“We’ve almost relied on those two players for a couple of years now and that’s something that we’ve spoken about as a group,” she said. 

“We need to have more players contributing. It’s going to be really important that we can win games if one or both of those don’t get run. That’s the makeup of a cricket team. We need multiple people contributing. 

“We want to be able to give depth to our order that would not rely on those two players and then that gives them freedom to say that that’s the plan. 

“We have been very fortunate that those two have been consistent over several years now.” 

Moving forward to next week’s clashes against New South Wales at Cricket Central in Sydney, Western Australia will continue looking to fine-tune their overall performance and knock off the current champions. 

Grundy says some honest conversations have been held since the opening two rounds, and hopes to get increase runs on the board. 

“We all know that it’s the early part of the season and it’s cricket. We want to play more aggressive cricket. We want to be able to pose bigger totals on the board,” she said. 

We’re not always going to get it right, and that’s a learning for this group. But it’s coming back to our strengths. It’s having honest conversations around how we improve game by game, but the group is in good spirits. 

“There’s a fair few of them now that have been around enough to know the swings and roundabouts of the season, and now it’s about being out to back it up when we get those opportunities.”

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