Six games, six wins - but what have England learned?

BBC News

3 hours ago

Charlotte Edwards was tasked with rebuilding England after a brutal Ashes drubbing which resulted in heavy criticism of the team's attitude, culture and on-field performances. The legendary former captain has started her era as head coach with a T20 and one-day international clean sweep over a depleted West Indies, but this was no surprise. Ultimately, Edwards and new captain Nat Sciver-Brunt could not have asked for an easier start to their tenure. Edwards' predecessor Jon Lewis also began his stint as head coach with a clean sweep over the Windies away from home, creating a sense of optimism and excitement before it all came crashing down with two disappointing T20 World Cup campaigns and the ill-fated Ashes to start this year.So this series win comes with a word of caution - we have seen this one before. England have regularly dominated home bilateral series, and then crumbled on the big stage. Prior to this series, they had won 79.3% of their completed white-ball games at home since 2020, and that number rises to 87.8% when you take out Australia and India.There are much tougher tests to come, starting with India's arrival in late June before the very challenging prospect of a 50-over World Cup in India at the end of September. World Cup-winning spinner Alex Hartley says that England are in a "good place" because of the dominant manner in which they have been winning, but has this series provided anything to suggest things will be different and whether the "new" England can finally perform under pressure when it matters?
Will the Amy Jones experiment last?
When she was appointed, Edwards made it clear that 50-over cricket would be her initial priority, saying that England needed a smarter gameplan and to improve their awareness, particularly with the bat.Her first move was to promote wicketkeeper Amy Jones back to opener alongside Tammy Beaumont, a role she fulfilled in 22 matches between 2016 and 2019.Jones certainly repaid Edwards' faith with a player of the series performance - scoring her first international hundred in her 246th match and then backing it up in the second game to finish with 251 runs at an average of 125.50 and impressive strike-rate of 114.61. But the challenge for Jones mirrors England's generally - can she step up against higher-quality opposition? Her average of 55.45 against West Indies is her highest against any team, but that drops to 16.33 against Australia and 19.66 against India. One aspect to consider is how teams may adapt to her success and how she'll fare in different conditions in India. How would Jones perform if a side was to start with spin against her for example?She averages 36.2 against spin and has a strike-rate of 82, both of which are more than respectable.The 31-year-old has only faced 35 balls of spin in the 10-over powerplay but is yet to be dismissed. She can be a slow starter against spin though, being dismissed 10 times by a spinner in her first 30 balls and her strike-rate drops to 78. Her record with Beaumont suggests they are a natural fit for the top-order rebuild which was needed after Maia Bouchier's misery in Australia where she averaged six. Jones and Beaumont are England's third-most successful ODI partnership, scoring 1,786 runs together in 30 innings while their average of 63.8 is comfortably the highest in the current team. Heather Knight and Sciver-Brunt are behind them with 42.8.
Matthews' class stands apart
Though West Indies generally offered England very little challenge, the most effective way of judging where they are at as a team is to see how they fared against one of the world's best players in Hayley Matthews. Without fellow all-rounders Deandra Dottin or Chinelle Henry in the squad, West Indies' hopes relied solely on their captain and more often than not, she keeps them afloat. And it is cause for concern that England have not performed well against the one player who can consistently put their bowlers under the pump and provide a significant contest. Matthews missed the second and third ODIs with a shoulder problem, having made a fluent 48 and taken 2-49 in the first, but was magnificent in the T20s. She scored a sparkling century in a total of 146 in the opener at Canterbury, fell cheaply in the second at Hove before scoring 71 and taking 3-32 in the third at Chelmsford.Against India, there are plenty of players capable of such performances - Smriti Mandhana, Shafali Verma, Jemimah Rodrigues and Harmanpreet Kaur to name a few. It will not be the same case of taking one wicket to define a game, and Matthews' efforts suggest this is a challenge they are desperately in need of."I think we've probably created it ourselves in many ways," Edwards said when asked about whether her side had been put under any pressure during the series. "Competition for selection in county cricket, going into county cricket and having to perform, and then obviously within this side now, making sure they are taking the opportunities."
Smith, Ecclestone or both?
The world's number one-ranked bowler Sophie Ecclestone made headlines during the Ashes after her refusal to do a pre-match interview with former team-mate Alex Hartley, who had criticised England's fitness after their T20 World Cup exit. The 26-year-old was left out for the West Indies series as part of her recovery from a knee injury, but has since played two 50-over matches and six T20s for Lancashire, and England insisted her omission was not in relation to the winter's controversy. She has since taken a break from domestic cricket to prioritise her wellbeing and to manage a quad problem, but remains available for selection for the India series.In her absence, however, fellow left-arm spinner Linsey Smith has shone with seven wickets in two matches including a five-wicket haul on her ODI debut which has left Edwards with a pretty significant selection headache, but a luxurious one. There is no reason why England could not play two left-arm spinners, particularly given they offer such different attributes. Ecclestone's height generates a lot more bounce, while Smith is skiddier and her strength comes from her accuracy. In the two ODIs she played, Smith would have hit the stumps with a series-high 45.8% of deliveries and her economy rate of 3.15 runs per over was comfortably the lowest. England's spin trio of Ecclestone, off-spinner Charlie Dean and leg-spinner Sarah Glenn have played together 25 times in T20s but only twice in ODIs. The World Cup in India, though, could provide further opportunity for Smith when she has previously been kept out of the side because of Ecclestone's brilliance standing in her way.Edwards called for greater competition for places, after accusations of complacency followed the Ashes, and this has immediately been delivered and gives even more significance to the upcoming games against India. She hinted post-series that all four of Ecclestone, Smith, Glenn and Dean could go to the World Cup.
Has the team perception changed?
Fielding has been one of England's biggest areas for improvement, with six drops seeing them prematurely knocked out in T20 World Cup group stage and seven on day one of the Ashes Test alone. They took 38 catches in this series but still dropped 13 chances, giving them a 75% catch efficiency. That is up from the 41% at the T20 World Cup in October and 63% in the Ashes and on par with the 73% in home matches since 2020. Their body language and demeanour was also criticised, with Lewis' carefree approach lending itself to accusations of players not caring enough about the results. Under their new leadership, England do seem re-energised with a buzz in the field and the new or returning faces like Smith and Issy Wong, who played two of the T20s, contributing to that change in energy. Edwards said training "had been great to be at". But considering the difference in circumstances - England were losing heavily in Australia and winning by barely breaking a sweat against West Indies - we are still no clearer on whether that will change under pressure. "We're under no illusions that we're going to have tougher times ahead," Edwards acknowledged. "But equally I think what we're seeing already is that appetite for wanting to keep getting better, because they've got to, they know they can't stand still, there's probably someone in county cricket scoring runs who's winning games of cricket. "It's going to be difficult picking teams going forward, but that's the place we wanted to be, we didn't want to be picking for 15 or 16 players, we wanted to be picking from a pool of 25 players which I genuinely think we are now."Only Matthews has put England's bowlers to the sword, but even on those occasions it never felt like they were in danger of losing. The heat and humidity of India's World Cup is where this will really be put to the test. Every game will matter and England will be well aware of the attention that will be on them to put things right after the Ashes.