The England women’s cricket captain, Charlotte Edwards, believes the forthcoming women’s Ashes series will showcase a positive, attacking style of cricket.
Speaking at the announcement of the squad for the first three matches of the series, Edwards said the team had been galvanised by the changes in the men’s game and were also hoping to tap into the momentum given to women’s sport by the England football team’s third place at the World Cup in Canada.
Edwards said: “Everyone has watched how the men’s cricket has evolved over the last six months and the World Cup especially and it has certainly filtered down to our team.
“To watch how the men performed against New Zealand was incredible and I only said to Alastair [Cook] last week that our training sessions since then have been more positive. We want to play a brand of cricket that you have never seen before from a women’s team.”
England announced a 14-player squad for the three ODI matches which kick off the series starting on the 21 July. England have gone for a predominantly experienced squad; between the 14 players, there are 807 ODI caps. Edwards, Lydia Greenway and Jenny Gunn have all each represented England over a hundred times.
The squad is a mixture of huge experience combined with some younger faces. The 24-year-old all-rounder Georgia Elwiss has forced her way back into the squad following a series of impressive performances for England’s academy side against their Australian counterparts.
England have also picked Warwickshire’s left-arm spinner Rebecca Grundy, the only player in the squad who has not played in an Ashes match. The 24-year-old made her ODI debut this year in New Zealand and impressed the head of women’s performance, Paul Shaw, taking seven wickets in the four matches she played.
First played in 1934, the women’s Ashes took on a new look in 2013, turning into a multi-format contest played over three ODIs, one Test match and three Twenty20s with points on offer for each match. This will be the third time the series has been contested in this way; England being the victors on the previous two occasions. There’s been a slight tweak for this year’s Ashes with two fewer points on offer for winning the Test match (down to four from six).
This will be the first time that England have played an Ashes since turning fully professional in 2014 and the ECB’s director of women’s cricket, Clare Connor, believes that this is possibly “the most eagerly anticipated series in the history of international women’s cricket”.
It’s a view shared by Edwards, who will be playing in her eighth Ashes series, but says she is looking forward to this one more than ever and believes her side can emulate the recent achievements of the England women’s football team.
“It is a series I always look forward to but there seems to be an extra edge to this one because it’s two professional teams for the first time, every ball live on the television and it will be the first Test match shown live on the TV. The players are so excited by the prospect of playing in this Ashes and with the feelgood factor around women’s sport at the moment, we really want to emulate what the football team have done. “
Connor believes there is real momentum in British women’s sport at the moment and that England cricket can continue to capitalise on that momentum.
“It is a great place to be,” Connor said. “With Heather Watson, the Lionesses in Canada, the netball World Cup coming up, there is a really positive feeling about women’s sport in this country. It is these girls’ jobs now, as the Lionesses have done, to capture the imagination. We have every ball live on the television for the first time and the team have an amazing following of girls through the Chance to Shine programmes who will be looking for inspirational performances.”
England squad for one-day internationals
Charlotte Edwards (captain, Kent), Katherine Brunt (Yorkshire), Kate Cross (Lancashire), Georgia Elwiss (Sussex), Lydia Greenway (Kent), Rebecca Grundy (Warwickshire), Jenny Gunn (Nottinghamshire), Amy Jones (Warwickshire), Heather Knight (Berkshire), Laura Marsh (Kent), Natalie Sciver (Surrey), Anya Shrubsole (Somerset), Sarah Taylor (Sussex), Lauren Winfield (Yorkshire).
