Edwards, Sciver-Brunt focus on positives after England’s exit from ICC ODI World Cup

England captain Nat Sciver-Brunt believes her side has made significant progress since she took over the leadership role earlier this year, alongside head coach Charlotte Edwards.

Both Sciver-Brunt and Edwards have been in their respective positions for just over six months, and their partnership has already brought visible improvement to England’s game during the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup. Although their campaign ended on Wednesday with a 125-run defeat to South Africa in the first semi final held here, England showed flashes of promise throughout the tournament.

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England managed to secure five wins from eight matches during the competition, but fell short in the penultimate stage when a dominant South African side, led by skipper Laura Wolvaardt and all-rounder Marizanne Kapp, proved too strong.

While Sciver-Brunt expressed disappointment at being knocked out before the final, she emphasised that the team has evolved considerably since she took charge and that there are plenty of positives to build on moving forward.

“We’ve come a long way since the summer,” Sciver-Brunt said after the loss.

“We’re a different side from then and we’ve learnt a lot. This will hurt but hopefully in time we’ll be able to take the learnings from it and move forward because we’ve made some great strides so far in quite a short space of time.

“It’s really exciting where we can go. To beat the best teams, you really have to be at your best and hopefully we’ll come back stronger the next time.”

Edwards echoed her captain’s views, expressing satisfaction with the team’s overall development, especially the performances of the younger players who have stepped up since she took over as coach in April.

“I think at the start we said we could beat anyone, but we had to play at our best. We weren’t at our best today and South Africa were. So that’s probably one of the reasons we’re going home early,” Edwards said.

“But there’s been so many positives, I think how the team have played throughout the comp. We’ve shown some real fight. I think some of our younger players have really stepped up and some of our older ones as well.

“But I think it’s been a real sort of team effort throughout, which is great. But we’ve been part of some fantastic games of cricket as well, so we’ve learned a lot. But ultimately it’s on today, isn’t it? And we haven’t played quite as well as we would have liked,” she added.

Focus shifts to ICC Women’s T20 WC

With their World Cup campaign coming to an end, England’s focus now shifts to next year’s ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, which they will co-host alongside Wales. Edwards hinted that the coming months will see experimentation with new faces as the team prepares for the global event, emphasising the need for improvement across all departments.

“We’ve got a T20 (World Cup) that will be our focus now from when the players come back in December through to obviously the English summer where we’ll be playing at home,” Edwards said.

“We’ll be on various camps with the players here and obviously some younger players. So, we’ll be looking at a variety of people throughout that time.

“And I think it’s not a time now to say who’s going to be coming in, who’s going to be coming out. It’s about us going back, reflecting. But equally on your question around – we do need to improve our batting, I think, don’t think it’s been consistent enough at times and equally with our bowling.

“I think all aspects of our game we need to look at certainly our death stuff. So, there’s lots to go away and work on which is exciting from a coaching perspective. But obviously reflecting on today and the tournament, there’s been some good stuff and some stuff we need to improve,” she further said.