The all-rounder was seen as the favorite to replace Alyssa Healy after her retirement last month. Instead, Cricket Australia picked up Sophie Molineux in a surprise move. Gardner was named joint vice-captain with Tahlia McGrath, who has coached the team 15 times before.
Before the India series, Gardner admitted that the decision hurt him, but only because of his commitment to the group.
“You have a kind of defense mechanism where if you don’t understand it, you don’t want to be so disappointed that you can’t move on,” Gardner told ESPNcricinfo. “So for me, it was like making sure that if I got it, it was amazing. If I didn’t, that’s fine. Obviously, when I got the news that I hadn’t gotten it, there was certainly disappointment, of course.
“It’s because I care and worry about this team and you get caught up in ‘how can I influence this team in Ashleigh’s way’. But then finding out that Soph got it, I was really excited for her. She’s an incredible person and I think the influence that I’ve seen from afar that she’s had on the groups, everyone speaks highly of her, which is a credit to her as a person, but also the way she leads and is a very deep thinker. The game.”
Although the captaincy opportunity eluded him this time, Gardner, 28, has not given up on his ambitions. She currently leads the Sydney Sixers and previously captained the Gujarat Giants in the WPL. She says she would be willing to take on the role again if the opportunity presents itself.
“If they ever saw me in that position, absolutely,” he said. “I love playing on this team. I love the people within this group. I think for me it’s making sure you have the perspective of: if there’s a ‘C’ next to your name, great. But you can still lead in a lot of other ways and I guess that’s something I’ve tried to do probably over the last few years; if I’m passionate about something and I want to be a real driver of change, keep doing it, even if you’re in an official role or not. So, if that opportunity ever arises, great.”
Gardner revealed that even the communication about the decision came under unusual circumstances.
“It’s probably actually a discussion we need to have,” he said. “The other two were in Australia when they got the news, I was on a golf course in India. So it was almost like taking that news as it was and then being able to get feedback on the areas I can improve on, first of all, and then how I can support Soph and T-Mac in whatever it is.
“It’s probably just those ongoing conversations that you need to continue to have to better utilize all of us. We’re all very different people and I think we have different strengths. It’s being able to support Soph in whatever that is and then ultimately whatever happens with T-Mac and I, it’s being able to be really diligent and transparent with whatever that looks like in terms of the leadership group and then also where we see the team going.”
Beyond the captaincy discussion, Australia faces an unusual situation. For the first time since 2017, their ICC trophy cabinet is empty after the semi-finals of the ODI and T20 World Cups, despite them having unbeaten runs in the group stages of each.
“I still think there’s a huge opportunity to understand what went wrong and those moments where we’re not winning,” Gardner said. “A bilateral series is played, a fairly good process is developed to overcome the challenges. In a World Cup you play [a team] once or twice.
“So for us it’s probably just about understanding where we lost the game and what are the ways we can try to improve, whether it’s the mentality or whether it’s under pressure and we’re not handling it as well as we could.
“I still think there’s a huge opportunity to understand what went wrong and those moments where we’re not winning,” Gardner said. “A bilateral series is played, a fairly good process is developed to overcome the challenges. In a World Cup you play [a team] once or twice.
Also read: Live Cricket Score
“There were many aspects of that whole World Cup where we had our backs to the wall and we found a way. India had our backs to the wall in that semi-final and we couldn’t find a way. So it’s probably about the whole World Cup rather than just the semi-final. Of course, that’s the game we lost when it really mattered. I guess in the last 18 months we’ve lost about two games of cricket and both have been important matches.”
