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If England had planned for one kind of disorder but unintentionally ended up nailing it for another, their resolve to embrace the “chaos” of the Women’s T20 World Cup could not have come at a better time.
They had no idea that the event would be moved to the United Arab Emirates due to civil upheaval in Bangladesh when they scheduled a pre-tournament training camp in Abu Dhabi, hoping to attract the substantial number of golf lovers in the team.
However, considering the last-minute uncertainty surrounding the venue, head coach Jon Lewis’s choice to throw a lot of curveballs at the team during New Zealand’s tour in June and July appears to have been a masterstroke. Lewis made the decision to put players under pressure and observe how they responded.
It all reminds us of the last T20 World Cup at the start of the year, when hosts South Africa eliminated England in the semi-finals. Lewis took over from Lisa Keightley following the 2022 home summer, and it was just three months into his term. Since then, he has been happy with the squad’s ability to improve on some of its deficiencies, like as how they handled pressure against Australia in this year’s drawn Ashes series.
“The biggest thing that came out of that World Cup that we’re still working on is dealing with pressure moments,” Lewis said. “I feel like we’ve been put under pressure quite regularly actually in games. The Australians did it a lot to us last summer and we came through that really well after probably a stuttering start in the Test match and the first T20. How we came out of that series, the confidence we took from that series was massive.
“My observations of the last World Cup were we weren’t particularly well connected on the field and our senior player group in particular, they weren’t able to communicate well enough at the right time. So we worked really hard at that and also the group weren’t brilliant at giving each other feedback about how to improve.
“We’ve worked hard at the way we communicate, we’ve worked hard at the way we connect and we’ve worked hard at certain individual skills, some more than others in terms of technical development, and I think we’re a more well-equipped cricket team than we were two years ago to go and tackle the World Cup. What I would say is the other teams have done probably exactly the same.”
Seam bowler Lauren Bell and top-order batswoman Sophia Dunkley are two important instances of developing skills and handling chaos. Both had to make major technical adjustments and then test them in games against New Zealand, which, while not providing the kind of test Lewis might have hoped for, forced them to make adjustments on a global scale.
They are both ongoing projects. After altering her grip, Dunkley now possesses a variety of shots that she wasn’t previously able to use, so she’s still figuring out when and how to use them.
Bell changed the way she played over the English summer. By adopting a more erect stance, she discovered that she could swing the ball in both directions. Ever since, she has been working to improve her consistency and wobble-ball skills.
Lewis accepted the element of fortune that had been thrown England’s way and felt confident that he had the team to capitalise on it.
“We’re in a really fortunate position that we’ve already had this camp booked in Abu Dhabi, which feels like a really big advantage, that we’re going to go and play our practice in the conditions that we’re going to play in,” Lewis said. “By the time we finish that, we’ll have had 10 days training there to work out the conditions and work out how the best way to play it is.
“We’ve got a really together group, they feel really welcome, they get on really well and they’re starting to be better at helping each other play cricket. I feel like we’re in a good position, but it’s a World Cup, things happen, it’s hard to predict when pressure goes on what people will do, but we try.”