Aus vs Ind 2025-2026 – Disappointed Ashleigh Gardner to go for Australia captaincy again

“You kind of have this defense mechanism where if you don’t get it, you don’t want to be so disappointed that you can’t move on,” Gardner told ESPNcricinfo ahead of the India series. “So, for me it was like making sure that if I get it, amazing. If I don’t, it’s okay. Obviously when I got the news that I didn’t get it, obviously there was disappointment there.

“It’s because I care and I care about this team and you kind of get caught up in the ‘how can I impact this team in Ashleigh’s way’ game.”

“If they ever saw me in that position, absolutely,” she said as she went back to looking for the job. “I love playing on this team. I love the people within this group. I think for me it’s making sure I 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 think that’s something I’ve probably tried to do over the last few years; if I’m passionate about it, if I want to be an official in something, or even change an official. If that opportunity ever came up did, great.”

“I think we’ve lost about two cricket games in the last 18 months and they were both ones that mattered.”

Ashleigh Gardner over Australia is now out of global silverware

There was a quick turnaround after that tournament in the WBBL season, and then a number of Australian players were at the WPL with others playing WNCL before the Indian multi-format series.

“That’s probably actually a discussion we need to have,” Gardner said of the new leadership group. “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 for what it was and then being able to get one, firstly get the feedback on areas I can improve on, and then how can I support Soph and T-Mac in whatever it is.

“It’s probably just those ongoing conversations that you have to keep in order to get the best out of 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 it is and then ultimately whatever happens with T-Mac and I, it’s just being really diligent and just being transparent in terms of the group and wherever we see our leadership going.”

The loss to India in the ODI semi-final means Australia’s ICC trophy case is empty for the first time since 2017. In both the one-day tournament and the T20 World Cup, the semi-final defeats came after unbeaten group stages with uncharacteristic decline from a team that had been relentless for so long.

“I still think there’s a great opportunity to understand what went wrong and those moments we don’t win,” Gardner said. “You play a bilateral series, you work out a pretty good process to overcome the challenges. In a World Cup, you play (a team) once or twice.

“So for us it’s probably just trying to understand where we lost the game and what are ways we can try to improve, whether it’s the mindset or whether it’s under pressure and we’re not handling it as well as we could have.

“There were so many aspects of that whole World Cup where our backs were against the wall and we found a way. India had our backs against the wall in that semi-final and we couldn’t find a way. So it’s probably looking at the whole World Cup rather than just the semi-final. Obviously, that’s the game we lost when it really mattered. I guess we’ve lost two games in the last 18 months and the last 18 months. what matters.”