Prepared for the worst: Aus women’s coach Mott on quarantine challenges

Melbourne, Feb 9 (SocialNews.XYZ) Australia head coach Matthew Mott on Wednesday said his team is 'prepared for the worst' as they travel to New Zealand for the women's Cricket World Cup in March.

After winning the women's Ashes in a strict bio-bubble environment, Australia and their opponents England will leave for New Zealand and enter 10 days of mandatory hotel quarantine before hitting the ground running for practice.

"At the moment, we don't exactly know what (quarantine) looks like, but we're prepared for the worst. It's a challenge for players and staff to get your head around that (and) we're also getting some different information about what it's going to look like," Mott was quoted as saying by cricket.com.au.

"So, to get some clarity on that will be great when we get over there. But something we've been exceptional at is just dealing with whatever comes, and I think our players deserve a lot of credit for the way they approached the series," added Mott.

Mott backed his team, led by Meg Lanning, to deal with the conditions of New Zealand as Australia seek to win the Cricket World Cup Trophy after making a semifinal exit in 2017. "We felt as a group (coming into the Ashes), there was a real commitment just to ride with the punches and try and look at the best in every situation. We're desperate to play cricket, I think we've been starved of cricket.

"In our group, there's a lot of mateship around, looking out for each other and seeing if everyone's going OK, and then really trying to just get on with it. We know it's not perfect, and we never pretended it's going to be perfect. But just trying to find somehow that resilience and being incredibly grateful for the opportunity to play in such difficult circumstances has certainly been the thing that's got us through."

Mott also hoped that pacer Hannah Darlington would come back stronger after opting out of being a travelling reserve in the World Cup due to mental health and wellbeing concerns. "I think it's a very brave decision that she's made. She's just felt that she's lost a little bit of the enjoyment factor in the last few months... the toll of the amount of cricket that she's played, she's a young player that's certainly been exposed to a lot of leadership opportunities... she'll have some time out of the game.

"I think it's been managed incredibly well behind the scenes by Pete Clark, our sports psych, and she'll get all the resources to help her get back in, spend some time at home, recalibrate and hopefully come back stronger."

Source: IANS