England ready to rock Women’s T20 World Cup, but far from home and dry

Just after midday last Sunday the England captain, Nat Sciver-Brunt, smashed the India captain, Harmanpreet Kaur, for six off Waterloo Bridge, straight into the Thames. The scratch-match, which involved all 12 competing captains, was part of a chaotic, eye-catching event to launch the Women’s T20 World Cup. Also involved were a red London bus, the International Cricket Council chairman, Jay Shah, and a day-long takeover of one of London’s busiest thoroughfares. A Women’s World Cup has never been this big, this important, or this annoying for black cab drivers.

The England and Wales Cricket Board has poured a lot of resources into trying to achieve its stated goal of making this tournament “a movement, not a moment”. Last week Sciver-Brunt, Lauren Bell and Sophia Dunkley became the first cricketers to appear on a Piccadilly Circus billboard. The entire West End cast of Wicked are being transplanted to Birmingham on Friday evening, to perform the musical’s biggest hits as part of the tournament’s opening ceremony.

More than 200,000 tickets for the tournament have been sold (although the organisers are still a way off their stated goal of 273,000, which would double the previous highest attendance at a Women’s Cricket World Cup, set in Australia in 2020). The fact that Scotland, Ireland and the Netherlands all successfully fought their way through the qualifiers in Nepal in January is an added bonus, given that droves of fans from those three nations are expected to make the journey to England.

So far, so good – but the difficult bit is still to come. Because anyone can connect cleanly when Harmanpreet Kaur bowls a full toss at them with a tennis ball. It’s when the real cricket starts – when Sciver-Brunt walks out for the coin toss with Sri Lanka’s Chamari Athapaththu at 6pm on Friday – that nerves will really jangle at the ECB, because England’s performance on the pitch is the one thing the governing body can’t control.

England may have won every World Cup they have hosted, but this England team are pretty good at achieving dubious historical feats (16-0, anyone?). And the goals of record-breaking reach, coverage and ticket sales are surely predicated on England being part of that final at Lord’s on 5 July.

Let’s look on the bright side. England are fresh from T20 series wins against the 20-over champions New Zealand and the 50-over champions India. Alice Capsey’s recent resurgence has come at the perfect time, giving England’s middle order much-needed oomph. Lauren Bell was already a mainstay of England’s bowling attack but they can now also lean on the newly ranked No 1 bowler Linsey Smith, a left-arm spinner who also swings the ball and is thus a potent threat in the powerplay.

Unexpectedly, the tricky piece of the puzzle now seems to be Sciver-Brunt herself, who somehow has to not just slot back into a side from which she has been absent for the past six weeks with a calf injury, but also find a way to lead it – despite the fact that Charlie Dean has (whisper it) looked a more natural captain.

England’s schedule is front-loaded with matches they should win – against Sri Lanka, Ireland, Scotland and West Indies – before finally facing New Zealand, last seen collapsing to 80 all out at Hove. In theory, this is an easy route to the semi-finals. In practice, England could easily find themselves on the wrong end of batting masterclasses from Sri Lanka’s Athapaththu or West Indies’ Hayley Matthews.

Scotland’s match against Ireland at Old Trafford on 13 June should be a cracker between two evenly matched sides. “There’s massive rivalry between us and Scotland,” the Ireland captain, Gaby Lewis, said on Sunday. “They’re one up on us after Nepal, but hopefully we can fight back in that first game.”

Watch out, too, for the former England player Kirstie Gordon, who returned to play for Scotland in Edinburgh two weeks ago after a nine-year absence. Nothing would please her more than to give her former teammates a kicking at Headingley on 20 June.

England’s main competition for the title, though, is in Group A, where Australia, India and South Africa are locked in a three-way battle for the semi-finals. South Africa were finalists in the past two editions of this tournament, knocking out Australia in the 2024 semi-final, and now have Shabnim Ismail back in their ranks after she reversed her retirement from international cricket. They also handed India a series defeat in April with the captain, Laura Wolvaardt, averaging 82 across the five-match series.

As for the perennial favourites Australia? Their reaction to being told that this will be the most competitive tournament in the competition’s history was to stroll to casual wins in their two warm-ups, against England on Monday and West Indies on Wednesday. Selecting Sophie Molineux as their new captain in January raised eyebrows given her ongoing injury issues, but even a weakened Australia are still, well, Australia.

It’s telling that at the Captains’ Carnival on Waterloo Bridge last weekend, the photo everyone seemed to want most of all was the one of Molineux and Harmanpreet, eyes locked across the World Cup trophy, with the London Eye in the background. Can England find a way to disrupt this anticipated finale? Tune in on Friday evening to find out.