Women’s Cricket World Cup 2025: Rating England’s chances

As well as bearing the pressure of her first tournament in charge, Sciver-Brunt’s all-round performances will also go a long way to deciding England’s fortunes.

So often, she is their sole saviour with the bat but she will at least have the comfort of Knight’s return from injury, providing extra stability and maturity in the middle order which they lacked against India this summer.

Edwards wasted no time in changing England’s opening partnership, reinstating Amy Jones with Tammy Beaumont, but again it was difficult to take too much from their back-to-back stands of more than 200 against West Indies considering the weakness of the bowling attack.

They were far less convincing against a superior India, with a stand of 54 sandwiched between partnerships of eight and seven.

England are also very inexperienced in India as only Knight, Beaumont and Danni Wyatt-Hodge have 10 or more ODIs to their name here – though they are more familiar with the conditions from the Women’s Premier League, a T20 franchise tournament.

In terms of the bowling, much will also depend on how many overs Sciver-Brunt can deliver, having not bowled since the Ashes because of an Achilles problem.

Edwards made the bold call to omit the experienced Kate Cross from the squad, which leaves Lauren Bell, Lauren Filer and Em Arlott as the quicks and Sarah Glenn, Charlie Dean, Linsey Smith and world number one Sophie Ecclestone as the spinners.

Bell has quickly become one of the first names on the England team sheet over the past two years, but there are still a lot of unknowns about the surfaces in India and Sri Lanka, with their group games due to be played at four different venues.

If the surfaces do not offer much spin, especially in the early stages, England could find themselves a seamer light or lacking Cross’ experience, with Arlott and Filer still searching for consistency in international cricket.

Arlott is also the only new addition to the squad since the Ashes, another indication that England’s depth is yet to materialise in order to challenge the mainstays, though it was always unlikely the team would see wholesale changes from the summer considering the enormity of the challenge of this tournament and the need for experience.

Source link