2 weeks ago
England sewage disconnected to a winning commencement successful their Twenty20 bid against New Zealand aft Alice Capsey struck an unbeaten 74 from 51 balls – her highest people for England, and her first T20i half-century since July 2024.
Capsey has mostly batted astatine No 3 for England but connected this juncture was promoted to unfastened successful spot of Danni Wyatt-Hodge, missing this bid owed to nan imminent commencement of her first child. She made afloat usage of nan other clip disposable to her, smoking 3 sixes and 7 fours arsenic England chased down their 137-run target pinch 3 wickets and 16 balls to spare.
Capsey’s was still a somewhat much restrained innings than that of New Zealand’s Sophie Devine, who had earlier lived nan precocious life for 21 balls, wellying 4 sixes complete midwicket – including 3 successful nan people of 1 complete from Sophie Ecclestone – but yet collapsed and burned, bowled by Dani Gibson erstwhile she yet grounded to link pinch a consecutive one.
Unlike Devine, Capsey not only reached nan milestone of her half-century but saw nan England innings done to its conclusion, sharing an unbeaten 64-run business from 35 balls pinch Freya Kemp. With nan commencement of nan World Cup now only 3 weeks away, she has chosen precisely nan correct clip to rediscover immoderate swagger.
As nan World Cup looms, these T20s – 3 against New Zealand and 3 against India – should springiness England nan chance to polish distant immoderate rustiness successful nan format, having past played a T20i successful July 2025. Their ringing fielding surely looked crisp enough.
Nat Sciver-Brunt remains absent nursing a near calf tear – though we are assured she will beryllium fresh for nan World Cup. In her stead Charlie Dean marshalled nan troops good again, positive picked up a mates of useful wickets – bowling Izzy Gaze pinch 1 which turned, and having Brooke Halliday caught trying to spell complete nan top.
Injuries aside, this was presumably thing adjacent to England’s World Cup starting XI, pinch Ecclestone, Dean and Linsey Smith arsenic nan chosen rotation triumvirate, Lauren Bell arsenic their 1 frontline seamer, and nary abstraction for nan 18-year-old Tilly Corteen-Coleman.
And nan people of play offered an intriguing penetration into England’s World Cup strategy: Bell and Smith opened nan bowling, while Kemp sent down her first 2 overs for England since January 2025, aft an ongoing conflict to retrieve from a accent fracture successful her back.
Bell started nan lucifer disconnected successful melodramatic manner aft Georgia Plimmer bottom-edged connected to her ain stumps disconnected nan very first ball. Meanwhile Smith claimed nan immense scalp of nan Kiwi captain, Melie Kerr, who drove consecutive to Bell astatine mid-off.
Kemp’s bowling return offered immoderate encouragement, though nan assemblage is still retired arsenic to whether she tin regain nan definitive gait which made her specified a potent threat erstwhile she was first called up arsenic a 17-year-old.
The oddest point of all, though, was that world No 2 Ecclestone vanished up arsenic nan astir costly of nan six bowling options. It feels sacrilegious, but if Charlotte Edwards is superior astir getting Corteen-Coleman into her XI, it whitethorn beryllium that she has to do nan unthinkable and omit Ecclestone. But that is simply a determination for different day: for now, clip simply to observe a winning start.
