Happy Villani bounces back to set sights on major prizes

Happier with her game and in a better place than she has felt for a long time, Elyse Villani no longer feels she has a point to prove to anyone but herself.

As she prepares for the start of Victoria’s domestic one-day campaign, due to start in Melbourne next Wednesday, the former Australia opener’s focus is fixed on helping her state snap a 15-year drought in the Women’s National Cricket League.

Her recaptured enjoyment of the game was evident throughout Rebel WBBL|06, when the former Australia opener formed a strong partnership with national captain Meg Lanning at the top of the Melbourne Stars order, to help a rejuvenated Stars unit make their first final.

For Villani, it was a stark contrast to her WBBL|05 season, where she was grappling with the disappointment of being dropped from the Australian squad.

"When I was dropped I was really devastated and I spent all of my time and energy worrying about things I couldn’t control and trying to prove people wrong, and that just didn’t work for me," Villani told cricket.com.au.

"In WBBL|05 I put so much pressure on myself that not only was I not scoring runs or performing the way I wanted to perform, I just wasn’t enjoying it either.

"It wasn’t until the end of that WBBL that I realised my method just wasn’t working, instead of trying to make a particular team or prove people wrong, I decided I was going to spend the time proving to myself that I still had what it took to compete at that level.

"I didn’t need to worry about external pressures or other people’s opinions.

"It meant I really started to enjoy the game for what it was and enjoying playing with my teammates, and not just worrying about myself and becoming so consumed about my own performances."

Villani scored 360 runs at a strike rate of 120.8 during WBBL|06; it was far from her most prolific campaign across the six editions of the WBBL, but the right-hander rated it as one of her best.

"In previous years I’ve probably made more runs but this year I felt I made more of an impact at the top of the order and I felt I helped set a tone and stuck to the way I wanted to play, and the way the Melbourne Stars wanted to play," she explained.

That shift in mindset had started in the second half of the 2019-20 summer, when she scored 259 runs at 51.8 opening the batting for Victoria.

"I feel like that was when I started to get my mojo back for the game, I started to feel a little more like myself in the middle," Villani said.

"I’d started trusting my game again and I was really enjoying the contest between bat and ball.

"I’m worrying less about how many runs I score, I’m more focusing on how I go about my business.

"I’ve stopped comparing myself to other people and I feel a lot more balanced out in the middle and off the field as well."

Villani’s performances across the last 12 months have been acknowledged by her contemporaries, who voted her the Female Domestic Player of the Year in this year's Australian Cricket Awards.

Taking in performances between December 11, 2019 and December 09, 2020, only Australia opener Beth Mooney scored more runs across both domestic competitions runs than Villani’s 602 during that period.

"It was a really nice surprise to be honest," Villani said. "It’s really lovely, I was pretty chuffed.

"Peer-voted awards, they’re pretty special and something I don’t take lightly.

"I was a bit lost for words to be honest, which is very unlike me."

Villani has won World Cups and Ashes with Australia, but there are still two big-ticket items she is desperate to tick off her cricket bucket list.

Winning the WBBL, and helping Victoria claim back the Ruth Preddey Trophy.

"I’ve been runners-up in both competitions and I‘m just hungry to go one step further and I believe the teams I’m a part of can do that if we play well," Villani said.

The Stars fell agonisingly short of that first goal in November, losing the final to the Sydney Thunder after a dominant regular season.

Villani admitted that final game, which saw the Stars limp to 9-86 before the Thunder cantered to a seven-wicket win inside 14 overs, had been a bitter pill to swallow.

"Nine-tenths of the season was amazing for us and then a really disappointing final game and unfortunately it’s a really bad time to have a bad game," she said.

"I was in a bit of disbelief at what was happening at the time ... I think a few of us were just in shock, you don’t mind losing if you put your best foot forward but it felt like it couldn’t have gone any worse.

"But at the end of the game (coach) Trent Woodhill said to us it’s not the end of something, it’s the start of something... the year before we finished bottom and the latest season to finish top, I think that’s  tremendous achievement.

"And while we’d have liked to have had a different outcome in the final, it’s about building on that next season."