Women’s T20 World Cup titles are hard to come by, unless you are Australia.
The game’s dominant force has won six of the past seven tournaments, while England have generally under-performed with successive semi-final exits.
But, for the upcoming tournament in the United Arab Emirates, which started on Thursday, Heather Knight’s side are genuine contenders to lift the trophy as one of the most in-form teams.
“England have got all bases covered,” former England spinner Alex Hartley told the BBC Test Match Special podcast.
“This is the best chance they’ve had of winning it for a long time.”
England started against Bangladesh on Saturday and are favourites to finish top of their group which includes Scotland, South Africa and West Indies.
England should have plenty of confidence after going unbeaten throughout the home summer with clean sweeps against Pakistan and New Zealand.
They won 11 consecutive T20s up until the series finale against Ireland in September, where only two members of their World Cup squad were playing. Crucially, they have a slight mental edge over Australia, having inflicted a first T20 series defeat on the world champions since 2017 during last summer’s unforgettable Ashes.
“That was the first time we had seen England compete against them in years,” said Ebony Rainford-Brent, who was part of the 2009-World Cup winning squad.
“It showed there were some cracks and, for the first time in years, England truly believed Australia were beatable.”
A shock T20 series defeat by Sri Lanka followed, though with a few key players rested, but the past year has seen England refine their aggression under coach Jon Lewis and they have developed a well-rounded, consistent squad.
Captain Knight, Danni Wyatt-Hodge, Nat Sciver-Brunt and wicketkeeper Amy Jones provide the experience with the bat, while the likes of Alice Capsey, Freya Kemp and Danielle Gibson could provide some explosive power-hitting – but their spin bowling is their ultimate weapon.
Sophie Ecclestone is the world’s best T20 bowler with leg-spinner Sarah Glenn ranked fourth, while Charlie Dean and Linsey Smith add other dimensions. They average 16.21, and concede just 6.09 runs-per-over, since the last World Cup, compared to 24.89 and 7.01 by the seamers.
They are particularly effective through the middle overs, conceding just 5.34 runs-per-over and have become a key part of England containing teams.
England were disappointingly knocked out by hosts South Africa in the 2023 semi-final
For England, there is no doubting they have the skills and talent required to win the World Cup, but instead it is a question of their mindset under pressure and how they respond to that.
During the last World Cup, they were knocked out by hosts South Africa in a semi-final they were expected to win, with some inexperienced players crumbling under the weight of the occasion.
That tournament was early in head coach Lewis’ tenure, and he pinpoints this as one of his, and his team’s, biggest learnings.
We are still working on it, but the Australians did it to us a lot [put us under the pump] last summer and we took a massive amount of confidence from how we responded,” said Lewis. (BBC sport)
