Former Australian women’s cricket captain Meg Lanning, who was part of seven World Cup wins for her country, says that after India’s first ICC World Cup triumph, the women’s cricket team “must be hungry for more success”.
Lanning, who will be serving as the UP Warriorz captain in the upcoming season of Women’s Premier League (WPL), adds, “Well, there’s a lot of upside. A lot of their (Indian) players are quite young as well. So, there are many more opportunities for them to win more World Cups.”
Having led Australia to back-to-back World Cup wins, she believes India’s win has done “great for women’s cricket” in the country. “I know that the Indian girls will be hungry for more success. Just winning one isn’t enough. You just wanna keep going…” says the all-arounder.
India won their first-ever Women’s World Cup title after a historic 52-run victory against South Africa in November 2025.
Meg is now keen to see how things shape up for Team India. “It’ll be really interesting to see how the next few years pan out, as everyone’s sort of chasing them now. It’ll be a tough battle, but I’m sure they’re trying to win as much as they can,” she says.
Lanning feels the Indian champions need to celebrate for now, as no one knows when the next one is going to come. “You need to make sure you celebrate your success because, obviously, that’s why you put so much time and effort into what you do, and secondly, you nailed it. So, it’s about just making small improvements and continually getting better individually and as a team to make sure you can stay at the top.”
As a true-blue competitor, she regrets her team losing the semi-finals, saying, “When the result doesn’t go your way, it’s obviously not ideal. It was a great contest, and India were too good on the night. But, obviously, I would’ve loved Australia to win.”
Bonding with Deepti and team
After captaining Delhi’s team last year and now leading UP Warriorz team she says, “I think our team is extremely balanced. We’ve covered all bases in terms of your pace and your spin. We’ve got some really good explosive batters and bowlers who complement each other. So I think that the team’s done extremely well to put it together. And, now we’ve just gotta go out there and play and enjoy ourselves and have some fun.”
On bonding with all-rounder Deepti Sharma she says, “She will certainly be someone I speak to and lean on a lot. So, it’s not just me. There’s a number of different people who’ll lead this side and try and make us as good as we can be. And I’m looking forward to that.”
Missing home turf advantage!
During the course of WPL, she is looking forward to having some blast and is missing Lucknow food as no matches are being held in the homeground.
“We would love to be able to get to our home in Lucknow. Unfortunately, games are not being held in Lucknow, so we have to deal with what we’ve got. But, hopefully at some stage, we’re able to, to get to Lucknow and play some games in front of our home fans. I’ve heard they’re really passionate and love games. The more support we get, the better it is for us. So, hopefully that can happen at some point.”
She adds, “I feel like there’ll be a few team dinners where we dance a little bit. It’s not my forte, so I’ll try and avoid it, but I reckon I’ll get pulled in at some point. I like how the Indians dance, very good rhythm. I don’t have any rhythm though. Maybe, try doing steps with the WPL Cup for our team,” she says on a positive note.