Last Updated on 6 months by Charbel Coorey
CricBlog has gained access to an interview with cricket legend Ellyse Perry after her Hundred match for Birmingham Phoenix against London Spirit at Lord’s. Perry scored 65 off 48 balls after fellow Australian and player of the match Meg Lanning struck 53 off 41 balls.
It wasn’t enough for the Phoenix as they fell short by 20 runs. Below is the audio of Perry’s interview as well as the full transcript.
Ellyse Perry interview at The Hundred: Phoenix are not too far away, believes the great all-rounder
Obviously, from a personal point of view, fantastic innings but disappointed with the result?
Ellyse Perry: Yes, yeah, definitely a little bit of a bummer there… I just thought, you know, we probably had a slightly slower start to our innings and then just lost the momentum at the back end there particularly that second last set of ten.
Gibson in particular bowled really well, so yeah, I mean, I thought, really good effort from our girls, but just… probably chasing a touch too many today.
You and Sophie Devine seemed to be batting really well together there and it was neck and neck for a really long time… that penultimate set of five took it away from you really?
Ellyse Perry: Yeah, I think so. I mean, you can always kind of look back in retrospect, is different parts of the game. We probably, again, just bowled a couple of loose overs that cost us… and then, that penultimate set of ten we kind of lined up for the short boundary, and trying to get as many as we can off that to give us a chance in the final overs…
I thought Gibson in particular bowled really well, but Soph and I just lost the momentum.
But in terms of your innings, you must have been pleased with how you were hitting it out there
Ellyse Perry: I think it’s hard to be too pleased when you don’t get the results for the team. I certainly enjoyed the opportunity to bat at Lord’s I think, yeah, feel incredibly fortunate to be playing this competition as this great group of girls to play with as well.
So for me, the biggest thing is to try get that win.
You couldn’t quite get bragging rights with that LBW decision that went against you with Meg Lanning… Is that going to be sort of a bragging rights after the game when you meet up?
Ellyse Perry: Definitely not, I think Meg and I are too old and jaded to care too much about that stuff! But, yeah, she batted superb, Megs. It’s a bit of a testament to Megs because she hasn’t played a lot of cricket in the last little bit… She just comes out and times the ball, and looks like a million bucks… So it was nice to play against her and good to see her playing this well.
Great knock, but you must still be looking for that win though for the Phoenix after last season and now this season
Ellyse Perry: I think it’s really crucial not to worry about last season, it’s an entirely different competition. It’s 12 months ago, but for us, I think we played reasonably well today. I thought we played very positively… there’s lots of good things in there, but just some finesse around a couple of our overs, and then losing that momentum at the backend of the chase just cost us, but London played really well too.
And once you get the win you can still get on a roll and get in the Eliminator… You can top the group with six wins can’t you?
Ellyse Perry: Yeah that’s certainly franchise cricket and short format cricket… It doesn’t take a lot to shift the tide. So I think we’re really enjoying our cricket and there’s been lots of positivity out there and the brand that we’re playing is great as I said, and we’re just missing a couple of crucial moments of execution that’s costing us.
What does it compare playing in the WBBL and the Hundred?
Ellyse Perry: They’re both different competitions. They’re both really great fun, and I think they’re both so important in the landscape of English cricket in the summer here and also back home in our summer, they have been great comps to continue to grow the great game and just grateful to be a part of it.
It’s great to see all these Aussies over here?
Ellyse Perry: Yeah there is a lot of Aussies in the women’s comp this year. I think the other day with Superchargers and Trent, there was six Aussies on the field, so the schedule’s worked out really well for us this season. There’s a lot of excitement back home when we’re training in the winter to get over here. Beautiful day today, makes it even better.
[On the weather]… I haven’t had too many bad days here since I’ve been here so I’m not complaining one bit.
Just one last question… it’s actually to do with the World Cup. Apparently there’s quite a lot of unrest in Bangladesh at the moment; some sort of security concerns. I don’t know if you’ve had any conversations with Cricket Australia at all around that?
Ellyse Perry: No, absolutely not. Look to be honest, I’ve probably watched way too much Netflix in the last sort of bit and haven’t kept abreast of world politics but like every other tour and competition we play on, there’s a huge canvassing of security, and where we’re travelling to, and there’s lots of people that handle that so we have absolute faith in that. I’m sure if we play over there, it’ll be in the safe positions.