Australian women's all-rounder Jess Jonassen finds Waqar Younis' remarks 'a bit offensive'

Pakistan’s all-time great paceman Waqar Younis faced considerable criticism for his suggestions that the Women’s World Cup should be limited to 30 overs. Waqar had earlier taken to micro-blogging site Twitter to share that 50 overs are ‘a few too many’.

Several personalities from the women’s cricketing circuit criticised Waqar for his insensitive comment. Among them, Australia all-rounder Jess Jonassen called the Pakistani’s remarks ‘offensive’. Despite the backlash Waqar received on Twitter, he went on to justify his position with yet another tweet.

Jess Jonassen, however, pointed out that there have been some exceptional performances over the course of the first week itself. As many as 7 centuries have already been scored, while England scored a whopping 377 in the first innings of a game.

“It is a little bit offensive. What’s T20 cricket for, then? ” Jonassen said in Leicester, where Australia are to clash against Pakistan this week.

“It’s quite interesting that he said that the day after our match against Sri Lanka, which was one of the highest scoring games of the World Cup so far, with 500-odd runs scored and two of the best innings of the women’s game ever. Maybe it’s a bit misguided. We’ll just leave it at that,” she added.

Jonassen was referring to Sri Lanka’s Chamari Athapaththu. Her brilliant innings of 178 from 143 deliveries took the Australians and the cricket world by surprise. Athapaththu’s knock was the third highest individual score in a women’s ODI, the second highest at a World Cup. Meanwhile, her six sixes equalled the record for most sixes in an innings.

Australian captain Meg Lanning, however, trumped the Sri Lankan’s heroics with a century of her own, thus defeating the Lankans by 8 wickets.

Heroics in the Women’s World Cup so far

In the bowling department, South Africa skipper Dane van Niekerk became the first bowler, male or female, to take four wickets in international cricket without conceding a run. She was responsible for bundling out the West Indies for as few as 48 runs.

Crowds have been filling up the stands for most of the matches, with tickets selling out quickly. England’s encounter against Australia in Bristol this coming weekend is expected to have another near-capacity crowd as well.

“The interest level has grown immensely over the last 12 to 18 months especially. For us, it’s also the introduction of domestic competitions back home with the WBBL and having a lot of the internationals coming there for that also. For us that’s something that’s really special and (so is) being able to help increase the profile of women’s cricket globally.”  Jonassen said.

“(The game has) absolutely gone to a new level. The introduction ICC Women’s Championship, in order to qualify for the World Cup, has paved the way for a lot of those improvements in a lot of countries around the world. It’s something that’s exciting for us and everyone else as well, the gap is closing and it’s pushing teams like ourselves and England to keep improving and still be front-runners,” Jonassen said.

“There’s no longer an easy game. That’s a massive positive. For us, losing the T20 World Cup not too long ago, that was a real turning point for this group, so there’s no room for complacency at all,” she concluded.

Keeper Alyssa Healy also has her say on Twitter.