Nat Sciver-Brunt believes she will be ready to bat when England launch their home Women’s T20 World Cup against Sri Lanka at Edgbaston on 12 June, barely six weeks after tearing her right calf during a One-Day Cup fixture.
A scan the morning after that match confirmed a significant strain, removing her from England’s entire build-up. Even so, head coach Charlotte Edwards has pencilled her in for the warm-ups – Australia at Hove on 8 June, India at Beckenham on the 10th – and the all-rounder is comfortable starting the tournament as a specialist batter.
“There’s no sort of pressure to be an allrounder at this stage,” Sciver-Brunt said on Wednesday. “We’ve got a very balanced bowling attack that is covering a lot of bases, so there’s not any pressure for me to bowl in the tournament.
“But from a personal point of view, I’d like to be available to bowl a bit later on. There’s two warm-up games into the first match, which is three games over five days, so it’d be stupid of me to try and do everything all at once. Everything has gone to plan so far and all the sessions that I’ve done have been pain-free.”
Those words will soothe England supporters, especially as Sciver-Brunt has not played international cricket since last November. Her absence forced a reshuffle but also allowed others to step up. England have beaten New Zealand and India 2-1 in back-to-back T20I series this spring, victories that owe plenty to Lauren Bell’s work with the new ball.
“When I came back from the World Cup in India, I looked at my game and highlighted the powerplay,” Bell explained. “As an area as, I’m in the team to take powerplay wickets, I probably wasn’t delivering on that.
“And so I had a period between getting back from the World Cup and going to the WPL, maybe two or three months of training, and you don’t get that that often. So I had a really big training block of working on the powerplay stuff. I’ve worked really hard and I guess I have more clarity on what I’m trying to do.”
The numbers back her up. Across the six T20Is against New Zealand and India she claimed nine wickets, six of them in the first six overs, conceding fewer than seven an over. That reliability has allowed Edwards to manage Issy Wong carefully after the seamer’s winter side strain; Wong bowled in only the first India match, while Lauren Filer rested throughout.
The return of Dani Gibson and Freya Kemp from separate back issues further cushions the attack, meaning Sciver-Brunt does not need to rush her bowling. Team staff say the plan is to give her a gentle run-up on flat indoor surfaces before pushing through to full pace outdoors, then decide, effectively “session by session”, how many overs she can handle. The fixture list helps: England’s group stage offers two-day gaps after each of their first two matches, space that may allow an over or two in the middle overs later on.
Away from nets and ice baths, Sciver-Brunt, Bell and Sophia Dunkley spent Wednesday morning in central London, unveiling a 17.6m-by-44.6m image of themselves on Piccadilly Lights. According to the ECB, they are the first England cricketers, male or female, to appear on that famous screen. The stunt launches This Feels Different, a campaign with Metro Bank aimed at persuading more girls to pick up a bat.
All three enjoyed the novelty – Sciver-Brunt confessed the billboard was “a bit surreal” – but none pretended it solved cricket’s wider challenges. Bell stressed grassroots investment; Dunkley talked up school programmes. The trio still had gym sessions booked that afternoon.
The larger point, though, is visibility: England want to win a world title on home soil to push women’s cricket further into the public eye, something they last managed in 2017’s 50-over event. This time the format is shorter, the squad is deeper, and expectations are quietly high rather than deafening.
Edwards is cautious about ever-shifting fitness updates yet upbeat about her side’s resilience. She likes the batting depth – Alice Capsey at three and Amy Jones finishing – and the variety in the bowling: Bell’s swing, Gibson’s skiddy seam, Charlie Dean’s finger-spin, Sophie Ecclestone’s relentless accuracy. If Sciver-Brunt can add four overs at the business end, so much the better, but nobody is banking on it.
For now the focus is narrow: two warm-ups, a clean bill of health, and a winning start in Birmingham. England may tinker with combinations but should resist wholesale change; solidity, not fireworks, wins most tournaments. As Sciver-Brunt put it, “It’s a day-by-day thing. Get the basics right, keep listening to the body, and we’ll see where that takes us.”
Should everything keep tracking as it is, that journey begins with bat in hand next week – and, if things break nicely, with a ball before the trophy is lifted.
