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The concept of Twenty20 cricket was always about lifting scoring rates, but contemporary T20 focuses obsessively on batting. Indian Premier League pars of 250, Vaibhav Sooryavanshi, six-hitting records, 30-ball hundreds, the search for the 20-over double ton: the attention is as relentless as the rate at which white Kookaburras fly into crowds. Looking at the Australia women’s team, the focus is on young aggressors Phoebe Litchfield and Georgia Voll; on Ellyse Perry’s late-career lift in strike rate; on Ash Gardner and Georgia Wareham’s aerial power at the back end.

In the current T20 World Cup in England, though, Australia’s success has been built on its work in the field, never more so than in their semi-final against West Indies while setting up a win by eight wickets with seven overs to spare.

The Australians have not been tested through six wins at the tournament as the bowlers have choked out team after team: South Africa all out 107, Bangladesh a pitiful 77 for eight, the Netherlands 121 for three, Pakistan 86 all out. India were the only group-stage opponent with a decent score, 170 at Lord’s last Sunday, but with no need for Australia to win that game, it was partly down to experiments with death bowling and a late switch-off in the field, allowing four sixes in the last eight balls of the innings, with two of those dropped over the rope. In any case, their batters ran down the target with ease.

West Indies were never in the semi-final at the Oval, after being invited to bat. There was of course the serious disruption of Deandra Dottin collapsing with an as-yet-unspecified health issue during Australia’s national anthem, having to be carried to the medical centre as play got under way. Not knowing whether Dottin would return may have dented West Indies confidence to attack. But Hayley Matthews and Qiana Joseph were paired at the top of the order with one objective, to go after the bowling with the field up, and while both tried, Australia denied either the chance to succeed.

Matthews got the ideal start with a half volley from Lucy Hamilton to smack through cover for four, but from then the left-armer used her angle across the right-hander with a deep point fielder back, almost having Matthews caught in that trap, and had no problem adjusting to bowl tight lines to the left-handed Joseph. Kim Garth meanwhile used the new ball on a humid day to get severe outswing, repeatedly beating Matthews’s edge.

In her second over she switched to bowling back of a length, using an Oval surface that gripped and made the ball stop. Joseph could not lay bat on anything: picked as an attacking weapon, she kept swinging at fresh air. The accuracy from Australia’s seamers was such that Hamilton was brought back for a second burst before the powerplay had ended, and while Matthews found a couple of boundaries from Sophie Molineux, she was progressively dried up thereafter.

By the time the fielding restrictions were eased after six overs, a wicketless West Indies had were under a run a ball. The game was in effect done already. With Joseph at one point on nine from 19 balls, Matthews was evidently under pressure, and was out trying to conjure a ramp shot in the ninth over with the run rate still under six an over. Even after being dropped and hitting one six, Joseph was 16 from 22 when she finally holed out. West Indies at the halfway mark had 58 runs and no platform from which to attack.

Unerring accuracy continued to do them in, highlighted by Gardner, not at her best with the ball in the tournament to this point, but rolling through four overs for 14 runs and two players caught at cover, foxed in the flight. Dottin remarkably returned to the game late in the piece, and was able to use pace from Annabel Sutherland to find a few boundaries. It was telling that the team’s best strike rate came from the player who halfway through the innings had been pushed out of the medical room in a wheelchair. Even Dottin’s 26 from 16 could only take her team to 125 for seven.

In effect, West Indies were a no-show because Australia’s bowlers didn’t allow them to turn up. What might have been a nervy game, given the Australians have lost their last two World Cup semis across both formats, became a sunny afternoon stroll. There should be a sterner test in the final from either possible opponent, with England more consistently showing a high calibre of ball-striking through this tournament, and South Africa with patchier form but still some quality batting. The real question, though, is whether either can flourish against an attack with such consistency across eight or nine bowling options. With that in an XI, short-form cricket doesn’t have to be all about the bat.