Meg Lanning (T20 cricket) captained Australia’s gold-medal winning team when women’s cricket made its Commonwealth Games debut in Birmingham in 2022. The victory completed a treble of titles alongside the T20 and one-day international World Cups already in Australia’s possession.

Widely regarded as the world’s best batter across all formats, Lanning scored more one-day international centuries (15) than any other woman and was Australia’s most prolific run scorer in T20 internationals (3405), including two centuries before announcing her retirement from the international game in November 2023.

Lanning represented NSW at primary-school level alongside Ellyse Perry, but her family moved to Melbourne when she began high school. She made her one-day international debut in 2011 against England and scored 103 not out in her second match, the youngest Australian player (18 years, 288 days) – male or female – to score an international century. In 2014, the then 21-year-old became Australia’s youngest ever women’s captain and was named Wisden’s inaugural Leading Female Cricketer of the World in 2015.

Lanning was also a member of five successful World Cup campaigns – four in T20 (2014, 2018, 2020, 2023) and one in the one-day international format (2022).