England Women’s T20 World Cup failure raises key question as Ashes loom

For the second World Cup in a row, England have been knocked out by a team that is, in theory, a weaker opponent. For it to happen once is a misfortune, for it to happen twice looks like carelessness.

Combine this with the 2022 Commonwealth Games semi-final defeat to India when a match that was in their grasp was let slip, and in each of the last three T20 competitions that England have played they have crumbled in the face of pressure.

This isn’t being wise after the fact. Ahead of the tournament, head coach Jon Lewis said the biggest thing that came out of last year’s World Cup defeat to South Africa was that the team were “still working on dealing with pressure moments”.

Cut to six overs into the West Indian chase and England were in a pressure moment. Boundaries were being struck regularly, but instead of a team rising to the occasion, shoulders went down.

“It’s not the reaction you want as a coach,” Lewis said after the match. “You could see a lot of the players starting to drift off, especially in their energy and the tempo we like to play at.”

At the mid-innings drinks break, Lewis made the unusual decision to go onto the pitch and deliver a team talk. “I suppose I rarely go on the field after a drinks interval, but I went on today just to remind them what we’re all about as a cricket team.”

England had beaten the West Indies in their last 13 matches. Had they won for a 14th time in a row, they would have played New Zealand for a place in the final. A team they have beaten in the last seven matches. England needed two wins against teams they were a combined 20-0 up against to reach a World Cup final, but fell at the first hurdle.

“I don’t think it’s a pressure problem so to speak,” said Heather Knight from the team hotel, 24 hours after the defeat. “I think it’s something we’ve looked to be better at for sure. But I think we do have quite a lot of young players which is forgotten sometimes and they’re still finding ways to deal with different pressures.

“Obviously last night was pretty brutal… and it’s something that myself and Jon have talked about pretty openly about wanting to be better at communicating under pressure and how to grow more leaders in the group.”

England had been meticulous in their preparations for this World Cup. They had hired a specialist data team to study how to best win in Bangladesh, where the tournament was initially meant to be held, and spent the summer artificially creating “chaos” in order to prepare the team for the unexpected to hit in the tournament.

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One of those scenarios was leaving out captain Heather Knight for their T20 against New Zealand in Canterbury, in case, for whatever reason, Knight was unable to take the field during the World Cup.

Twelve overs into England’s innings Knight’s calf popped and she was forced to retire hurt. The idea was the summer was meant to have prepared England for such a scenario, but instead, it showed just how much England needed her.

“I suppose it showed how much we missed her with her not being out there,” Lewis said of Knight’s absence. “Because I think she might well have been able to help the bowlers in particular a little bit more than Nat [Sciver-Brunt] was able to in that situation.”

It leaves England in a tangle. They have dominated the bilateral cricket they have played this year and sit quite comfortably as the second or third-best team in the world. They win for large stretches of time and then lose in one-off situations.

As a result, while change is clearly needed, it is not entirely clear where. Both Lewis and Knight are incredibly well respected within the group and wish to continue.

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“Definitely,” was Knight’s clear response as to whether she wanted to carry on even after eight years in the job. “I’m still really enjoying it, I feel like I’m contributing massively to this team and still trying to help it grow.”

Neither does it appear that any major changes of personnel are upcoming either.

“It’s obviously really frustrating and there’s a hell of a lot of things we can do better,” Knight said.

“But I guess looking at how we’ve performed as a whole, I think we’ve got the right people in place. I think it’s really important as individuals that we learn from what’s gone on and find ways to better…managing our emotions and things like that when we’re under the pump…But I think we’ve got a huge amount of talent in this group.”

One area of England’s game that has come under scrutiny is their fitness, with both former England bowler Alex Hartley and former England captain Michael Vaughan calling it into question.

“I don’t think it’s a reason we lost yesterday because of our fitness levels,” said Knight of the criticism. “I think we’ve got some brilliant athletes.”

England’s next major assignment is the Ashes in January when they head Down Under. Their opponents, Australia, who they drew with in the home series in 2023, are currently the benchmark of the international game and look set to win a fourth T20 World Cup in a row and seventh title out of the last possible eight.

It will be the true litmus test of where this group is. Seven matches, played against the best in the world in their own conditions. After that, we will know if England’s World Cup defeats have indeed been misfortune or carelessness – and whether change is needed.