Proud of this group of players: Meg Lanning

“I’m just really proud of this group of players and staff. We’ve had everything thrown at us, ups and downs. It was tough, definitely, especially after we lost that first game. There was a lot of expectation on us, inside and out. Definitely sometough times in there but we stuck with each other, had each other’s backs,” she said.

Australia was dealt with major blows when star all-rounder Ellyse Perry and pacer Tayla Vlaeminck were ruled out of the tournament and Lanning said the absence of the duo affected the team’s plans.

“Coming in they (the injured players) were a big part of our plans, we had to go to Plan B and C.”

Talking about the record turnout of 86174 at the iconic MCG, the most in a women’s cricket match, she said, “It has been massive, 86000people at the MCG, I’ve never seen it before and didn’t think I’d be part of it in the middle.”

Player of the tournament Beth Mooney, who scored a scintillating unbeaten 78, said her team was aware of its shortcomings from its group stage loss against India and worked on executing the plans properly.

“I’m a bit lost for words. It has been an unbelievable tournament. The crowds have been great throughout the tournament,” Mooney said.

“Didn’t really do anything differently. We had some plans we didn’t execute in that first game. I think we stuck to our processes. We sort of knew what went wrong against India in the first game and we worked on our plans accordingly,” she added.

It’s time to introspect: Mandhana

Senior India player Smriti Mandhana called for the team to be left alone after its 85-run mauling by Australia in the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup final.

“This is a time to introspect. Failure teaches you a lot more than success. The team needs to be left alone and think of how we can be better in the next few years,” Mandhana said.

Mandhana believed India is a transformed team in the shortest format, and she attributed it to head coach WV Raman.

“T20 was never our best format, one-day was definitely the preferred format. Now we’re playing each format equally well. That is one thing the coach has helped us with and we’ve developed massively,” she said.

“The youngsters coming in have totally changed the set-up and the best part of the tournament was it was a complete team performance. That’s one thing Raman has done -- developing us as a team not just one or two players. Today, it didn’t work out but we’ve grown as a team, not just as one or two players.”