World Cup winners recognised in Brisbane

The players behind Australia’s unparalleled record in the Women’s World Cup will be recognised and rewarded at a reunion in Brisbane on Saturday night, almost 40 years after their first triumph.

The Southern Stars involved in Australia’s successful 1978, 1982, 1988, 1997 and 2005 World Cup campaigns will be celebrated at the event at the Gallery of Modern Art Brisbane, presented with the individual winners’ medals they never received at the time.

While the Australian team which defeated West Indies in Mumbai in the 2013 final were awarded medals after the match, the same presentations were not made at previous events.

That will be rectified on Saturday following the International Cricket Council’s decision last year to award medals to all players and support staff of World Cup-winning squads – both women’s and men’s – who didn’t receive them at the time.

Players from the six winning teams have flown in from all over Australia for the celebration.

"I never thought we’d see this happen," Australia’s winning 1988 captain Lyn Larsen said.

"To have all those players in one room, I haven’t seen most of the girls I played with since 1988.

"We’ll be comparing grey hair (and) it’ll just be nice to catch up and to meet some of the players we never knew or played again from those early wins.

"It’ll be an education for me and really exciting."

Of the 10 Women’s World Cups held to date, Australia have won six of them, with England (3) and New Zealand (1) the other victors.

Australia’s first World Cup victory came in the second edition of the event, when the team led by Margaret Jennings triumphed in India.

That was the start of a golden run for the Southern Stars, who went on to win the next two events in 1982 and 1988, defeating arch-rivals England in the final on both occasions. 

After failing to make the final of the 1993 tournament in England, Australia – led by Belinda Clark – bounced back in 1997, victorious against New Zealand in the final of the event held in India.

Clark then claimed a second World Cup as Australian captain in 2005, defeating India in Centurion.

"Australia’s got a really strong history, not only in the men’s game but in the women’s game, so to be able to pull together all these successful teams and recognise them as a collective is really special," Clark said on Friday.

"The current players will benefit from having a chat to those who’ve been there and done that before, they’ll find a lot of characters and a lot of people who made a lot of sacrifices to be really good cricketers, and who will also be really proud of where our current team is at."

Australia’s most recent success came in 2013, when skipper Jodie Fields led a team containing current World Cup squad members Meg Lanning, Alex Blackwell, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Rachael Haynes, Alyssa Healy and Elyse Villani to victory in Mumbai.

"While women’s cricket has a way to go, and we acknowledge that, the women who were part of these five World Cup winning teams are the trailblazers and the backbone of getting women’s cricket to where it is today," Cricket Australia Chairman David Peever said.

"Women’s cricket was not supported financially or professionally in the way it is today, or in the way Cricket Australia envisages for the future. 

"Just to get on the field for the World Cups of the past, certainly before the women’s association joined the ACB in 2005, our female cricketers had to fight, and fight hard.

"Cricket Australia is totally committed to women’s cricket and we owe it to these women, to say thanks for the belief and the hope they gave new generations who have watched them lead the way.

"No cricket team, in the history of the game, has ever dominated one format like our players have commanded the Women’s World Cup."

The current Australian World Cup squad will also be in attendance on Saturday, before their campaign for a seventh World Cup begins next weekend when the 15-player group flies out for London on Saturday June 10.

A one-week camp in Southampton will give the No.1 ranked team a chance to adapt to the local conditions before their first warm-up clash against South Africa at Oakham on June 20.