Before the actual war of the willow and the leather takes place in one of the oldest rivalries in the antiquity of cricket, it is the war of words that sets the tone perfectly for a maddening clash. In one such verbal altercation ahead of Ashes 2023, dropping some serious heat bombs already, England’s Issy Wong took to war against her Australian counterparts.
Albeit not being in the best of shapes that saw her getting axe from the World Cup team of England that faltered in the penultimate stages of the quadrennial extravaganza, Wong showed what she is capable of in the recently concluded WPL where she was an instrumental part of the champion side, Mumbai Indians and also bagged 15 scalps at an average of 14.00.
This is what Issy Wong had to say about Australia ahead of Ashes 2023
Talking ahead of Ashes 2023 to ESPN Cricinfo, Issy Wong said, “I think it’s a pretty good time to play them, you know, just quietly. They are undoubtably, in my opinion, one of the greatest sports teams in history, of any sport, of any gender. Their record over the last 10 years is absolutely outrageous.”
She further added, “But it feels like that kind of golden era they’ve had is… you’ve had Rach Haynes retiring, [Meg] Lanning stepping away, obviously coming back in ridiculous form, but there’s a lot of new faces in that group that are unbelievably talented but haven’t necessarily played the biggest part for them over the last couple of years. I think it’s a really good time to actually go at them and say, ‘right, you are the best team in history, but you’ve a couple of new faces in here and let’s see if you’re as good as you were five years ago.’ I think it’s great time to play. I’ve never played them though. I have watched them on the telly a lot, they look great.”
This is what Issy Wong had to say about Australia’s opening pair
Wong also said, “I’ve never played them but I don’t view them as ‘the Australians’. They’re going to have Beth Mooney and Alyssa Healy opening the batting, Meg Lanning’s going to bat at three, then in that middle order you’re going to have [Tahlia] McGrath, [Phoenix team-mate Ellyse] Perry, [Grace] Harris. You’ve played against these guys so much that you get to know them and, not necessarily even know their games, but they’re humans at the end of the day and humans do good things and humans do bad things.”
