Meg Lanning: Australia's captain desperate for World Cup success

Meg Lanning has won more than 200 caps for Australia

We live in a world where little is left to the imagination.

Social media has made professional sportsmen and women more accessible than ever, bringing them closer to the fans who idolise them and ultimately pay their wages.

It feels valuable to have the opportunity to learn about the person behind the athlete. What makes them tick, what they do away from sport and the real-life experiences that have shaped them as human beings seem more interesting than how well they are hitting the ball in the nets or which end they prefer to bowl at.

Which brings us to Meg Lanning, who has managed to piece together a career as perhaps the best batter to ever play women's cricket while barely revealing anything about herself.

Lanning is captain of an Australia side that is probably the strongest international sports team, male or female, on the planet. By the time the 30-year-old finishes her career, she is likely to have numbers matched by no other woman. Her cut shot is so precise, it could take the head off a dandelion from 100 yards.

And yet, even those who have played in the same team as Lanning admit to knowing little about her. The biggest revelation from a near-forensic trawl of the internet is that she doesn't like eating coriander.

Watching Lanning in action paints a picture of an ice-cold winning machine. Automatic, unflappable and almost emotionless.

A conversation with her reveals the opposite. Lanning is likeable and modest, open enough to admit she is a "guarded" person who finds captaincy much more stressful than she makes it look.

She hates one nickname - 'The Megastar' - and laughs at another: 'Serious Sally'.

"I don't tend to open too much," she says. "I've got a small circle of friends who I really trust and I go along with them rather than worrying too much about what's happening on the outside."

The fourth of five children, Lanning's early cricket was with younger sister Anna, herself a good enough batter to play for Melbourne Stars. A narrow concrete path was their pitch, with a wall on one side and windows on the other encouraging them to play straight.

Lanning's sporting ambition was actually to play hockey for Australia at the Olympics, with cricket only taking over around the age of 17. She made her first international hundred at 18 and was captain at 21, the youngest person to do either for an Australian cricket team.

Even now, in her ninth year as skipper and undisputed leader of a team that dominates women's cricket, Lanning has to battle with her reserved nature.

"The biggest challenge that I have found, even today, is building relationships with everyone in the team and trying to understand how to best get the most out of people," she says.

"It doesn't come naturally to me."

With an eye on life away from cricket, Lanning has completed a degree in health and exercise science. Because of the commitments of her day job, a three-year course took eight to finish.

In that time, Australia have not lost any of the three Ashes series in which Lanning has been in charge (she missed one through injury), and won three of the four T20 World Cups.

The last such instance, on home soil in 2020, came with the added pressure of trying to 'Fill the 'G' - a push to sell out the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground for the final on International Women's Day.

Australia eventually got there, memorably celebrating on stage with Katy Perry after getting their hands on the trophy in front of a crowd of 86,174, but not before almost being eliminated in the group stage.

"It was very stressful," says Lanning. "I don't think I've felt so nervous.

"It felt like people were saying 'Australia is the best team, they'll get there', but that's not how it works. We could have been out of the World Cup in two games, which would have been a disaster.

"We tried to talk it down as much as we could, but we felt it. There's no doubt about that."

Meg Lanning celebrates with the T20 World Cup trophy in March 2020

Now, Australia are looking for the one trophy they do not currently possess. As overwhelming favourites to win the 50-over World Cup, they meet West Indies in Wellington in the semi-finals on Wednesday. Lanning is the tournament's second-highest run-scorer.

Five years ago, Australia were dumped out in the last four by India, the eventual runners-up to England. For Lanning, the experience was physically painful. She played with visible strapping on her shoulder, an injury which would later require surgery.

"That was clearly not a great time," says Lanning. "Now that's what I really want to do. I want us to win and I want to personally contribute to that."

That desire leads to Lanning's World Cup experience being "highly stressful". She admits to a "fair bit" of her day being taken up thinking about cricket, to the extent that she is trying to teach herself to switch off from the game.

She confesses to being unable to sit still, so will escape to play golf when she can. Even on training days, she has been spotted doing extra running around the Wellington waterfront.

To be so consumed by cricket leads to the question of what Lanning will be left with when her playing career is over, even if her best years might still be to come.

"As a player, everything is pretty much dictated to you in terms of where you need to be and what you need to do," she says. "Then you might find yourself having to do all that stuff for yourself, and you're not really used to it.

"I can't go on forever and I haven't come up with an answer yet.

"It's a bit scary, to be honest."

For now, Lanning is the figurehead of the premier women's cricket team on the planet. Her talent with the bat and leadership of the Australia juggernaut has created a public profile. Even if she has not looked for the spotlight, there are parts of being a recognisable figure she can embrace.

"If young girls and boys take up the game because they see us playing on TV, enjoying ourselves and having fun, that's a good thing," she says.

"We're lucky to be in a position to have an influence and we want to make sure it's a positive one.

"It's a really cool thing and something I actually really enjoy."

Lanning might hate the nickname, but she really is a 'Megastar'.

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