'A tight decision' - Inside the call to make Sophie Molineux Australia captain

The announcement of Sophie Molineux as the next long-term captain of Australia came as a surprise. But there is a world, if not for injury, where she may have already led her country.

Molineux, now 28, has been a leader ever since entering the Australian team as a 20-year-old. She captained Victoria's Under-18s. She was the youngest captain ever appointed at the Melbourne Renegades aged 21. She also led Victoria at 22 in the WNCL, even with Meg Lanning and Ellyse Perry playing in her team at times.

"I've always enjoyed leadership," Molineux said after her appointment. "I've always enjoyed the opportunities I've had leading teams and starting at the Melbourne Renegades and at Victoria. I know it's a real passion for me."

Leading domestic teams is one thing, even at a young age. Captaining Australia full-time is quite another. The next leader is walking in the footsteps of giants. Only nine women have captained Australia across all formats in Molineux's lifetime and only six of them have been full-time leaders: Belinda Clark, Karen Rolton, Alex Blackwell, Jodie Fields, Lanning and Alyssa Healy.

It is understood that without a series of shoulder, knee and foot injuries, Molineux might have been considered a serious candidate when Healy was appointed after Lanning's retirement.

However, those injuries have been significant and can't be ignored. Molineux did not play Test or T20I cricket in 2025 and had to be managed through the ODI World Cup on return from injury. Over the course of an eight-year career she has only represented her country 58 times.

The other two candidates who were part of the formal interview process in Tahlia McGrath and Ashleigh Gardner have 119 and 190 international caps respectively and have been mainstays in a team which, until the last 15 months, had been unstoppable. Even Phoebe Litchfield and Annabel Sutherland, who are seen as future leaders but were not considered at this time, have played more cricket for Australia before turning 23 and 25 respectively.

But that Molineux even received a phone call from national selector Shawn Flegler prior to Christmas to be part of the process speaks volumes about how she is regarded.

"I probably didn't give myself much of a chance at the start to be honest," Molineux said. "That [the phone call] probably sparked something in me that, why not give it a crack and see how far I got in. It's been an amazing process to go through personally, and it's just a real honour today to be able to stand here."

That she has been chosen ahead of McGrath, who has already captained her country 16 times across two formats while acting as Healy's deputy, and Gardner, who has been one of the team's key match-winners and a heart and soul contributor throughout an era of dominance, is where much of the external surprise will come from although McGrath's dip in form had come at a bad time.

However, through multiple interviews with Flegler and coach Shelley Nitschke, as well as the Cricket Australia board, Molineux's calmness has stood out as a key attribute.

Australia are going through a transition of sorts. They have been unable to keep their cool in the last two global semi-finals they have lost. Calmness, both on and off the field, appears to be a desired trait in the leaders moving forward as they seek to regain the two titles that have slipped from their grasp, as well as the pursuit of gold at the 2028 Olympics.

"It was a tight decision," Flegler said. "You can see she's pretty calm. What you don't see is she's pretty cheeky as well. She's got a bit of white-line fever at times when she's extremely competitive, but she also brings people together, and we think Soph is the right person for this time. We've got T20 tournaments coming up in the next few years. That's the key format, and Soph has had success with the Renegades doing that."

Molineux's success with Renegades in winning a drought-breaking title in 2024 has clearly been a major reason in her elevation to the national job. Her Renegades coach Simon Helmot articulated what makes her a special leader.

"She's got a really good strategic brain, she's very, very smart on the field," Helmot told SEN. "[She] does take on information though and is very much open to analytics and information.

"Her greatest attribute is she has a great understanding of the temperature of a dressing room and her players. Her strength and also potentially, not a weakness, but a challenge, is sometimes she can care too much about everything that operates around the club.

"But I think that's one of her greatest attributes. That she's really caring of her team-mates, she tries to make sure that people feel very comfortable in the dressing room and out on the ground, just most importantly, so players can succeed."

An anecdote that stuck in the selectors' minds about Molineux's care for her team-mates was in 2022. She missed the ODI World Cup through injury but drove to Melbourne airport to welcome home her friends as winners despite not earning a medal herself.

"I've found a real passion for helping people," Molineux said. "And I look at that Australian team and what we have now, and we've got generational talent at both ends of the scale. To be able to bring all that together, that's the beauty and the really exciting part for me, moving forward and working with Shell, Ash and Tahlia, bringing it all together, and seeing if we can go to new heights."

Her injury history suggests she will need help. She has not been able to captain every game for Renegades in recent years. It is clear that Gardner and McGrath, as dual vice-captains, will lead at various stages even though Molineux was hopeful she could play every game.

"I'm going to do everything I can to play every game of cricket for my country and lead the group," Molineux said. "But at the same time, we do have to be smart, and it's not our first rodeo.

"I suppose the injuries and the setbacks, that's all a part of sport, but it's probably given me greater perspective. You know, things are never as bad as they seem in the moment or as good sometimes. So I think I could probably use that to my strength at times, and it might keep me a bit more consistent and calm in moments. And I know we're going to have a lot of big moments coming up that we're going to need that calmness."