Villani brings back the fun to kick-start the Stars

Rediscovering the fun that attracted her to cricket in the first place has helped Elyse Villani bring back the joy and freedom to her game this Rebel WBBL season.

Villani and her Stars teammates will play for their first WBBL title on Saturday night at North Sydney Oval, in a dramatic change in fortunes from last season, when they finished on the bottom of the table.

The 31-year-old had shouldered much of the load at the top of the order during the Stars' poor WBBL|05 campaign, where they won just two out of 14 matches.

At the time, she was still smarting after being dropped from the Australia squad following the 2019 Ashes, and felt she had a point to prove to the national selectors.

Now, Villani says, the only point she is trying to prove is to herself.

"I really wanted to come out this season and prove to myself I still had what it took," Villani told cricket.com.au following the Stars' training session on Friday.

"My only concern was making sure I was proving that to myself, not to anyone else.

"I felt like I still had a lot to offer and I feel like I've proven that to myself.

"It's not about the amount of runs I score, it's how I score the runs and that's in line with how we want to play as a team."

Villani has scored 359 runs in 13 innings this season, compared to 344 from 14 in WBBL|05.

While the overall numbers are similar, what is noteworthy is the significant jump in strike rate – up to 125.08 from 103.92, a return to the aggressive Villani of old.

A huge part of that freedom has come from the batting depth in the new-look Stars squad: Meg Lanning returned to join Villani at the top of the order, Mignon du Preez is in career-best form at No.3, while England allrounder Natalie Sciver and Australia young gun Annabel Sutherland round out an enviable line-up.

"I go out to bat at the top of the order and I feel like I have complete freedom and my only job is to try and get us off to a good start in the Powerplay," Villani said.

"I'm not too worried about facing a certain amount of balls, it's more about impact and playing my role for the team.

"We're all committed to a certain style of play, we know it's not going to be every individual's day, every time we play.

"If it's not my day, it might be Meg's day, and if it's not Meg's day, it might be Nat's day or Belsy's day and the list keeps going on.

"Nobody is going out there thinking it's up to them, everyone is going out there thinking, 'I need to play my role and it will be someone's day today'."

Villani is relishing another chance to open the batting with close friend Lanning, having previously done the same at international level and for the Perth Scorchers.

They might be chalk and cheese when it comes to personality, but they are clearly in sync: when asked what they enjoyed about batting together, they produced near-identical answers.

Villani said: "We've known each other for a long, long time, we've played a lot of cricket together and we do enjoy batting together as well.

"We know each other well, there's a lot of trust there, we know each other's game and when we are going through ups and downs we know how to help each other."

Lanning said: "I really enjoy batting with Junior, we understand each other's game so well, we've played a lot of cricket together.

"We have a smile on our face all the time and enjoy each other's company.

"It's nice to see her plying with real freedom and smiling and enjoying her cricket."

Villani could not put into words what it would mean to win a maiden WBBL title with the Stars on Saturday night – she could only promise there would be waterworks – but she easily articulated how this season has been different to the ones before.

"We're just having a bloody good time and remembering why we first started playing, because it's fun," she said of the Stars circa WBBL|06.

"We play the game because once upon a time we fell in love with it and somewhere along the way it became more professional and more serious and it felt like there was a lot more to lose.

"When you're in a professional bubble you can lose sight of why you first started playing the game, but I feel like we have brought it back to our roots."