Meg Lanning

Every dynasty has a beginning, and for Australian women’s cricket in the 2010s it was a schoolgirl who could not find a girls’ team to play for. Meg Lanning went on to become the youngest captain in her country’s cricket history and the face of one of the most dominant eras the sport has seen. Her journey began in the most ordinary of places, a primary school team and a lot of weekends spent playing against boys.

Lanning was born in Singapore in 1992, where her father worked as a banker. The family moved to Sydney, and she picked up the game at 10, when a teacher at Warrawee Public School suggested she try out for a regional team. She soon represented New South Wales at junior level. Another move, to Melbourne ahead of high school, shaped the rest of her path. At Carey Baptist Grammar she played in the boys’ cricket team, having already spent years alongside boys because there was no girls’ side to join. She also represented Victoria in junior hockey before cricket won out.

Her rise from there was swift. She made her debut for Victoria in December 2008 at 16, and two years later, at 18, she was in the national side, making her T20I debut in December 2010 and her ODI debut a week later. Her second ODI, against England at Perth, announced her to the world, as she hit an unbeaten 103 and became the youngest Australian to score an international century at the time. She kept raising the bar. She finished the 2012 T20 World Cup as one of Australia’s leading run-scorers in a title win, and later that year she hit a century off 45 balls against New Zealand at North Sydney Oval, one of the fastest by an Australian woman.

The silverware soon followed. Lanning was part of the side that won the 50-over World Cup in India in 2013, and she made her Test debut in that year’s Ashes. In January 2014, at 21, she stood in as captain for a T20I when Jodie Fields sat out, and a month later she was named the full-time T20I captain. She went on to lead the side in all three formats. Her first major tournament in charge ended in the 2014 T20 World Cup title in Bangladesh, where she was also her side’s leading run-scorer. The next phase of her career was a golden run. The 2017 World Cup semi-final loss became the turning point, and she often described rebuilding from that disappointment as her proudest achievement.

Working with coach Matthew Mott, she led Australia to the 2018 T20 World Cup title in the West Indies. The 2020 final at the MCG, played in front of more than 86,000 people, became the defining day of her tenure. Along the way, her side went on a record unbeaten run in ODIs, then won the 50-over World Cup in New Zealand in 2022 and the gold medal when women’s cricket made its Commonwealth Games debut in Birmingham later that year. In 2022, she was also made a Member of the Order of Australia for her service to women’s cricket.

The demands of the role eventually caught up with her. After the Commonwealth Games, she took an extended break for personal reasons, then returned in time to lead Australia to another T20 World Cup title in South Africa in 2023, her last tournament in the green and gold. A second break followed, and in November 2023, tearful at the MCG, she announced her retirement from international cricket at 31, saying she had nothing left to achieve. She finished with 7 World Cup titles, 2 in the 50-over format and 5 in T20, and 8,352 international runs across 241 matches. She is also a three-time winner of the Belinda Clark Medal.

Retirement from the national side did not mean the end of her playing days. She kept playing for the Melbourne Stars in the WBBL, where she had a strong 2025 season that included a century, and in the Hundred. She also captained Delhi Capitals from the first season of the Women’s Premier League, leading them to the final in each of the first three years. In 2026, she moved to UP Warriorz as captain. It was a tougher campaign for the team, but she became one of the first batters to pass 1,000 runs in the competition.