Lydia Greenway's KOS Blog - entry six

Wednesday's game against Australia was our last before what will be the biggest one of our lives on Sunday, the World Cup final.

Playing Australia and knowing we were already in the final with them not being in it was a surreal feeling. This feeling did not last long though; this game was never going to be taken lightly by any of us. We wanted to win.

Winning the toss we were in to bat and off to a good start with a four off the first ball. Caroline [Atkins] and Sarah [Taylor] got us to 18, before the first wicket fell. Claire Taylor (Tails) joined Sarah and it wasn't long before the next wicket fell.

Our captain Charlotte [Edwards] came out to join Claire, with myself next in. The crowd was the biggest and noisiest one of the tournament so far (2,214) and I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous.

Lottie was out and I was in and at 50 for 3 we were struggling. Tails and I knew we had a tough job ahead of us to consolidate but also keep the scoreboard ticking. We managed to do this and got us to 106 - 3 of 30 overs until I was stumped for 22.

I was so disappointed to be out because I felt if Tails and I were still in with 15 overs to go we could look to play more shots and up the run rate. From then on there was a steady fall of wickets and we never got ourselves into the position where we could go on and put the Australian fielders and bowlers under pressure. We finished on 161 all out.

There was no time to dwell on our batting performance and we knew we had to hit the ground running and get early wickets. We also had a change of tactic and opened with Laura Marsh, our off-spin bowler. We felt if we could put pressure on the batters early and force them to play shots against spin we could be in with a chance.

Unfortunately for us this didn't happen and credit to the Australians, they came at us hard and at 60-0 they were in a strong position. We weren't going to give up without a fight and we managed to get a couple of wickets. This however only delayed the time in which they got the runs; the game was won by the Aussies in the 34th over.

This was by far our worst performance of the tournament and with the World Cup final only a couple of days away we are getting our heads down and working on putting things right.

On a personal note I was pleased with the start I got batting but so disappointed in the timing of how I got out. Fielding-wise I was happy with how I fielded and happier still when I got fielder of the day. This is something our Assistant Coach Jack started last summer - whoever he thinks fields the best on the day gets a cuddly toy!! This time it was a boxing kanagaroo!

That evening Beth [Morgan] and I caught up with some friends and went to a lovely Greek restaurant not far from our hotel, although it was a bit posher than we thought and, though we probably didn't fit in with the attire (cocktail dresses and suits!) we went in anyway and the food was lovely.

Now all our focus is on Sunday and I know that our whole squad will be doing everything we can to bring the World Cup back home with us.