Australia coach Matthew Mott is confident that the legacy of his side’s T20 World Cup win earlier this month won’t be affected amid the Covid-19 pandemic outbreak while saying that they were lucky as the timing of the whole tournament got over. A whipping 86,714 spectators witnessed Australia’s fifth title-triumph at the MCG.
“I think we’re all shocked and it’s a little bit surreal at times,” Mott said on Tuesday (March 24). “From a community perspective we’re feeling for a lot of people who are a lot less fortunate than us. We were incredibly lucky. We thought we were lucky getting through the semi-final with the weather the way it was.”
“Looking back, we were three or four days away from missing (the final) and it would have been incredibly disappointing with the amount of work that went in behind the scenes to basically fill the MCG, the game it turned out to be, and the celebration of women’s cricket. We feel very fortunate, we were incredibly lucky to get through that and it could have been so different if it as a week later. Hopefully for a lot of people it’s a lasting memory of live sport for a little while,” he added.
Matthew Mott was proud of how Australia have changed the whole game.
Read here: The Future of IPL 2020 at Stake?
“I got a call from Andrew Symonds the other day and he said he was just so proud of the team, the images of the players celebrating and dancing with Katy Perry, they will last in the memories of anyone who watched the event for many years to come,” Matthew Mott shared.
“I do think the images and the way we played, the adversity we came up against – the players have become heroes for a whole new audience and it’s a male audience as well as female. The young boys and girls who will be inspired by that event, I’ve already had so much feedback about that. I was playing backyard cricket with my son the other day and he did a little skip and hop as he came into bowl and he said he was Schutter (Megan Schutt),”he furter expressed.
“For me, that’s magic. It gave me goosebumps at the time and it shows we’re not just inspiring young girls, we’re inspiring young boys as well and the next generation will be so much better for that experience we went through,” Matthew Mott concluded.
