MCG unveils historic artwork commemorating Australia's T20 World Cup-winning women's cricket team

Two years on from Australia's historic Women's T20 World Cup final win, an artwork commemorating the moment has been unveiled at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where a record 86,174 fans watched the team win the 2020 title.

Painted by two-time Doug Moran National Portrait Prize winner Vincent Fantauzzo, the portrait depicts the 16 squad members lifting the trophy as yellow and green confetti fills the sky.

It is the first artwork to depict a women's sports team to be on permanent display at the MCG, and will be displayed along the route of the famous MCG Tour, which attracts around 130,000 people every year.

Not only is the legacy of the tournament win immortalised in the artwork, but so is the significance of the wider moment for women's sport.

Unveiled on the eve of International Women's Day, the portrait also commemorates the fact that the 2020 final broke the attendance record for a standalone women's sporting event and the highest crowd figure for a women's cricket match globally, after a months-long campaign by Cricket Australia to raise the profile of the event.

Fantauzzo came up with the concept in collaboration with all of Australia's World Cup-winning players through a mix of in-person interviews and video calls.

Having painted the likes of Heath Ledger, Baz Luhrmann, and Julia Gillard, he said this project was one of the most important and memorable of his career.

«This is my first major commission for sport, and while I've painted sportspeople before, this one took on an extra layer of significance because of what the World Cup moment here at the MCG represents to history, to the players themselves, and to those that witnessed it,» he said.

«Because of that, there was a little bit of nervousness in unveiling it.

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