Emily Scarratt 'priceless' to England, says former captain Sarah Hunter
The Loughborough Lightning centre is set to be selected for a record fifth World Cup, and is the leading points scorer in women's rugby.
Leicester-born Scarratt spent more than a year away from the game with a serious neck injury that threatened to cut her career short but has since returned to the England set-up and will be a key part of the Red Roses' bid for a first world title since 2014.
"She is just incredible,' Hunter said. 'When you look back on her career and being a superstar, she was the first player that brought a level and quality to the game that we hadn't seen before.
'She was a generational talent and if you think about the length of time she has been able to do that, it is incredible.
'Then you throw in her leadership skills, the presence that she has in the team, you can't underestimate it.
'You look at what has happened post that World Cup in 2022 to now and what she has been through in a potentially career-ending injury.
'It wasn't just to get back playing, it was to have a normal life, the injury she had. I think that takes a lot of strength of character so to get back to the level that she has done is a testament to the person that she is.'
Having played together for over a decade, Hunter now sees Scarratt's brilliance from a different angle, serving as defence coach for England.
Hunter took up the role having been part of the Gallagher High Performance Academy in 2023, a scheme delivered by World Rugby to increase the number of women coaching.
Close to 50 women will have benefitted from the scheme by the end of the World Cup in England which begins on 22 August in Sunderland.
Scarratt, who won the World Cup alongside Hunter in 2014, also coaches at a grassroots level and could potentially follow Hunter into elite-level coaching when she eventually hangs up her boots.
Hunter added: 'She just adds so much to the team environment, her experience, her calmness, her leadership, when she speaks, people listen.
'The ability to make people around her look good, having her in a World Cup squad is priceless.
'It is really special for her if the Red Roses go on to win it in a home World Cup.
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Some of the best bowlers can take inspiration from a moment of batting defiance or even inadequacy. England's Devon Malcolm produced one of the great spells of fast bowling against South Africa at the Oval in 1994, taking nine for 57 after he was riled into action by an incident when the tailender was batting. 'In the first innings, I'd bowled a bouncer at Jonty Rhodes and hit him on the head, so when I came in, the South Africans were encouraging their bowler Fanie de Villiers to give it back to me,' Malcolm tells The Athletic. 'I thought it was a bluff and he would bowl me a yorker, but it was no bluff and he hit me on the head with the fiercest bouncer I'd ever faced. It hit my helmet right on the three Lions. 'It caught me by massive surprise. In those days, there was a bit of an unwritten rule that bowlers didn't bowl bouncers at fellow fast bowlers and in return, you didn't smack them to the fence. But this was different.' It led to one of the great lines in cricket history, with South Africa's Gary Kirsten subsequently claiming that Malcolm told the South African fielders, 'You guys are history,' before going out and destroying them. Or did he? 'I just said, 'You shouldn't have done that. If you want to see what fast bowling is all about, wait until you come in again',' Malcolm says. 'Then what happened was a perfect storm. I just felt in the zone from the start. Every nick was taken, every lbw was given, and I just got on a roll. All started by being hit when I batted.' If Panesar and Malcolm were rabbits, then some tail-end batters can be classified as 'ferrets' — because they go in after the rabbits. The ultimate ferret was New Zealand's Chris Martin, who belongs to a select group of cricketers who have taken more Test wickets (233) than he has scored runs (123). 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Click here to read more cricket stories on The Athletic, and follow Global Sports on The Athletic app via the Discover tab.
