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After overcoming a shaky opening spell at Edgbaston on Saturday to help her side secure a 53-run victory with figures of 3 for 22, Lauren Bell has pledged to “attack the stumps” as the standard tactic, both against Pakistan for the balance of England’s Twenty20 International series and as a way to counter Bangladesh’s slow, low wickets in this winter’s T20 World Cup.
After England’s April tour of New Zealand ended, Bell had not played competitive cricket. Her opening over of 12 runs included two wides and two boundaries, more runs than Pakistan had given up while taking England’s first four wickets of the game.
To help prevent the possibility of a major upset, she bounced back quickly at the end of the powerplay, dismissing Gull Feroza for 17. She then struck again in each of her next two one-off overs. Speaking on the eve of this Friday’s second Twenty20 International in Northampton, Bell conceded that England’s performance in the opening game had been imperfect, but he maintained that their execution, not their intention, had been at fault.
“The fact that we were 11 for 4 and still got to 160 shows the depth in our team,” Bell said. “Neither innings started the way we wanted them to start. But it just shows the depth and character of the team that we could come back and obviously we still ended up winning by 50-odd runs.
“That was my first game of the summer, so I was obviously a bit nervous and maybe a little bit rusty,” she added. “I played a lot of cricket this winter, and when I came back from New Zealand, we felt my priority was to have a bit of extra rest. But there’s so much still to play, and I’m really fortunate that I play all three formats, so I can’t play every possible game.”
Bell was certain that the players would not let a difficult day undermine the aggressive mindset that their head coach, Jon Lewis, has instilled in them over the last two winters, especially with their focus already shifting to the T20 World Cup in October.
“That approach will never change, and I don’t think the messaging will ever change,” she said. “Taking the game on will always be Jon’s message and I don’t think he’ll go away from that. That that’s how we want to play and we are going to fail, probably, sometimes – but we’re not going to go away from the way we want to play.”