England seek World Cup redemption in South Africa
Jon Lewis picks over the wreckage of failed campaign as Australia loom in the new year
Valkerie Baynes12-Nov-2024England will be seeking the ultimate response to their shock early T20 World Cup exit when they travel to South Africa for a multi-format series from the end of November.Last month’s failure to reach the knockout phase of a tournament where they were considered title contenders is still raw, but Jon Lewis, England Women’s head coach, has been unpicking what went wrong during a six-wicket defeat to West Indies in their final group-stage game in Dubai.The loss of captain Heather Knight once she retired hurt with a calf injury while in the midst of a free-flowing 21 off 13 balls emerged as a key factor at the time. With the exception of Nat Sciver-Brunt’s unbeaten 57, no other batter reached double figures after Knight’s exit as England collapsed to 141 for 7.Then, with Sciver-Brunt standing in as captain, England couldn’t contain a century opening partnership between Hayley Matthews and Qiana Joseph – the latter put down a staggering five times en route to 52 – and looked increasingly rattled in the field with every boundary and dropped catch.Related
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It all pointed to an inability to withstand the pressure of things not going their way, a scenario England had rehearsed throughout their home summer, even leaving Knight out of a match to simulate what turned out to be their worst-case scenario.Speaking on Tuesday from England’s high-performance base in Loughborough where he was working with the South Africa touring party – minus those in Australia playing in the WBBL – Lewis highlighted the difficulty of training for tournament cricket, despite that being a challenge for teams universally.”Yes, we have done a lot of work around how we how we work under pressure, and we’ve done a good amount of ‘what if’ planning, if our captain’s not around and so on,” Lewis said. “It’s not back to the drawing board, but it’s a continuation of that work, and to make sure that, rather than going, ‘oh, what we’ve done hasn’t worked, we can’t do this, and we can’t do that’, it’s, ‘okay, what is it we need to tweak, to improve, to make sure that if that situation ever happens again, we’re able to cope with it better than we did last time?’Once England are joined in South Africa by their WBBL players – including Knight, who is among the competition’s leading run-scorers – Lewis said attention could turn fully to moving forward.”When we get to South Africa, we’ll be doing some work around that and how we respond to those sorts of situations,” he added. “The tricky thing is, to recreate those situations is incredibly tough in training. However, we’ll just continue to plan, talk and think and develop, because we are a developing side with a lot of young players… with a young group of players, there’s a chance that they will make mistakes when the pressure goes up. The key bit is about what they learn from that, how they reflect on it.”England dropped five catches against West Indies•ICC/Getty ImagesOf the eleven players on the field in that game against West Indies, seven were aged 25 or younger. But, of those seven players, only two in allrounder Dani Gibson and seam bowler Lauren Bell had played fewer than 30 T20Is.Sophie Ecclestone, the spearhead of England’s four-pronged spin attack, has played 90 T20Is despite being just 25 years old, while legspinner Sarah Glenn is the same age and has played 68. Alice Capsey, England’s youngest player at just 20, has 37 T20I caps and was one of the busiest franchise players in the world in 2023-24 – she has made 124 T20 appearances in all during her relatively short career.Lewis said “I 100% don’t agree” with suggestions in the aftermath of that defeat that his team weren’t fit enough. Instead he highlighted – along with the youth of his team – inconsistent bowling and skill execution with regards to the dropped catches as reasons behind the World Cup exit. He also felt the side “became a little safer at times in our decision-making” and wanted to see a return to the more fearless approach of last year’s drawn Ashes, especially with a return series looming in Australia in January.”There’ll be some real strong group reflection when we get to South Africa,” he said. “I would expect a real response from the T20 team in particular in this series against South Africa. What I would like us to do is to go back to how we were playing last summer against the Australians, how fearless we were.Related
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“What I’ve been able to do here with the players, in terms of one-to-one reflection, they’ve all been really honest and really understanding of what they got right and what they got wrong, and they’re all really clear about what the next steps are for them moving forward. And so the work begins now to put that right in terms of getting better at our skills and being braver with our skills, and then moving the team forward.”One player who won’t be part of the South Africa tour, which begins with the first of three T20Is on November 24 is Capsey, who was dropped as one of just two changes to the T20I squad, the other one enforced after Gibson underwent surgery on a knee injury sustained in the field against West Indies. Paige Scholfield has been brought in to add firepower with the bat at No. 6 or 7 and quick Lauren Filer returns after missing the World Cup where seam bowling played a bigger role than many teams had anticipated.Capsey’s omission comes amid an extended form slump in which she managed a top score of 19 in three World Cup innings and has made 64 runs in seven innings – with just two double-figure scores – for Melbourne Renegades in the WBBL. But, given that Lewis identified bowling as an issue at the World Cup, making her the only omission seems a one-dimensional response.Alice Capsey was dropped for the South Africa tour•ICC/Getty Images”The reason for leaving Alice out of the T20 squad was her inconsistency over a period of time, not just at the World Cup,” Lewis said. “Alice’s form has been trending downwards for probably the last eight to nine months. I felt that it’s a really good time for us and her to have a reset in how she goes about what she does, and give her a little bit more time to work out the issues that she’s having within her game and then come back stronger.”The most important thing from my point of view, in that position at No.3, is that she continues to try and impact the game and play the way that we’d like her to play, but we would also like her to be a little bit more consistent in that space. What I do know about Alice is that she’s incredibly strong-willed and really determined to be the best player she can be. There’s no doubt in my mind that, over time, she will play lots and lots of games for England in all formats but at the moment, she’s just trending in the wrong direction, and we just need to have a little reset.”Lewis also said there had been lessons learned off the field, especially with the optics of players posting on social media from a yacht trip during a day off in Dubai. While he was “really confident” in players’ off-field behaviour, he acknowledged that such posts could further arm critics.”I think that’ll be a sharp learning curve for the players involved in that,” he said. “What I would say is, I really trust our players and they train incredibly hard, but the female game particularly was getting a lot more scrutiny than ever before. Unfortunately for the players, that’s something that they’re going to have to think about and understand the consequence of those things, of the misconception of what they are doing and how people can misconceive a social media post.”I’ve got an incredibly diligent and incredibly hard-working group of players who I feel get the balance really right in terms of relaxing and having fun and being able to turn off from the high-pressure jobs that they do. I feel that they get it just about right. They won’t always get it right, because young people make mistakes, but I would say the vast majority of the time, they get it very right.”In South Africa, England face opponents sifting through World Cup disappointment of their own, having reached a second consecutive T20 World Cup final, only to lose it, this time to New Zealand. And their task won’t be any easier in the new year against Australia, the defending champions who were sensationally beaten in the semi-finals by South Africa.With so much to play for over the next two-and-a-half months, the trajectory of England’s education is sure to remain steep.