Eight days ago, England were bowled out by Sri Lanka for 116 in 19 overs, and the coach, Jon Lewis, was having to field questions about the weakness of his batters against spin.
On Thursday at Leicester, an almost identical side smashed 273 for 8 in a rain-reduced 31 overs against the same opposition, at a run rate of 8.8 – their quickest ever scoring rate in a one-day international – as they wrapped up their international summer with a dominant 161-run win.
Almost identical, but not quite. The difference? England had endured a Nat Sciver-Brunt-shaped hole for the duration of the T20s, after Lewis chose to rest her. On Thursday she roared back to life, celebrating her 100th ODI by striking an astonishing 120 from 74 balls.
In the process, she broke a record which had stood for 11 years, her 66-ball hundred becoming the fastest ever by an Englishwoman in ODI cricket, surpassing the 70-ball century struck by Charlotte Edwards against New Zealand in 2012.
Charlie Dean then took a career-best five for 31 as Sri Lanka were bowled out after crawling to 112 in 24.5 overs.
“When you play so much cricket through the summer, you don’t need to train too many things to be right in the mind and right in the body, and continue that mindset that I had [in the Ashes],” Sciver-Brunt said. “That’s what I was trying to do: rest through the T20 series and make sure I was switched on when it came to the ODIs.”
Sciver-Brunt’s talismanic impact on the rest of the England team was symbolised by her 193-run partnership with Maia Bouchier, who had batted impatiently and recklessly throughout the T20s, managing scores of 22, 12 and 23. But on Thursday, against essentially the same bowling attack, she smashed a chanceless 95 from 65 balls, making the most of her elevation to the top of the order after Emma Lamb was again ruled out with a back spasm.
- Download the Guardian app from the iOS App Store on iPhone or the Google Play store on Android by searching for 'The Guardian'.
- If you already have the Guardian app, make sure you’re on the most recent version.
- In the Guardian app, tap the Menu button at the bottom right, then go to Settings (the gear icon), then Notifications.
- Turn on sport notifications.
“What we saw in abundance today was the calmness she brought,” Lewis said of Sciver-Brunt. “It’s the authority that she brings, and the clinical way she goes about what she does, but also the way she communicates on the field. Nat would have talked Maia through that innings, and that’s the value of having someone of that seniority in the side.”
Amid a hailstorm of boundaries – 18 fours and a six lofted effortlessly over long-off – Sciver-Brunt reached three figures uncharacteristically quietly, with a single tapped into the leg-side in the 24th over. Bouchier, though, fell agonisingly short of bringing up a century of her own, trapped lbw by Kavisha Dilhari in the 25th.
Sciver-Brunt was caught at long-off 10 balls later, exiting to a standing ovation from a crowd who had sat out the three-hour rain delay and were richly rewarded for their patience.
But their dismissals paved the way for an exciting cameo from the 22-year-old debutant Bess Heath, who had time to strike a 14-ball 21, including a six over deep midwicket.
Sri Lanka might as well have waved the white flag then and there. With Sciver-Brunt taking over the captaincy in the absence of Heather Knight (who was suffering from a sickness bug), Lauren Filer and Mahika Gaur reduced England’s opponents to 24 for three within the first seven overs of the chase.
It was Dean, though, who bagged the key scalp of Chamari Athapaththu, trapping her lbw for the second time in as many matches, before pulling off the rare feat of three wickets in an over – an athletic dive to her right to snatch a caught-and-bowled, an off-break which tempted a nick from Hasini Perera and a flighter which bowled Dilhari through the gate.
Finally, in the 19th over, Udeshika Prabodhani dragged one on to her own stumps and Dean celebrated her maiden five-wicket haul – the cherry on the top of a perfect day at the office for England.
