Cricket: England Women’s Natalie Sciver is happy the game is on the rise despite team’s poor form in New Zealand
England Women have now lost their first two group-stage games in the women’s cricket World Cup leaving them with a mammoth task if they want to progress to the semi-finals, writes Lucy Roberts.
It’s been a long five year wait since England won the last World Cup which saw the team pull off a comeback against India in the final at Lord’s cricket ground, but it’s looking highly unlikely they’ll be able to defend their title.
The Three Lions kicked off their campaign at the major tournament with a defeat to Australia by 12 runs, and Lancashire’s Sophie Ecclestone being taken out by a final wicket called the match.
However, this shouldn’t have been too alarming as they lost their first game in the 2017 World Cup against India but then went on to win the whole tournament.
So, on Wednesday England went into their tie with West Indies hoping to redeem their sins from the previous game and try to repeat their form from the previous tournament, but this wasn’t meant to be.
They lost again, this time by a narrower margin of seven runs but still a loss, nevertheless.
Ecclestone partnered up with her Lancashire teammate Kate Cross for a short while and achieved 60 runs between them, but it wasn’t enough to get their team over the line after Cross’s replacement Anya Shrubsole was caught out.
Even though they’ve failed to secure a victory so far, England still have five more games to play before the semi-finals.
This means that there are still plenty of opportunities for Preston-born 24-year-old Emma Lamb to play in her first world cup.
Currently playing for North West Thunder, Manchester Originals and Lancashire, Lamb started her career in 2015 by appearing alongside her brother Danny in the Cheshire County Premier League to become the first woman to do so.
Now the rookie all-rounder could play beside her Lancashire teammates Cross and Ecclestone on the world stage.
New Zealand are hosting the competition and it looks very different to the last time they held the tournament in 2000.
All eight teams lived together, ate together and trained together in student accommodation at Lincoln University in Christchurch while the International Cricket Council governing body was still volunteer run.
But the women’s game has come a long way since then and is still experiencing a stellar rise in participation and popularity, helped massively by the new format tournament the Hundred.
In 2012, 41% of viewing hours went to women’s cricket while there were 4.9 million new viewers of the Hundred, and only 25% of this audience went on to watch men’s cricket, according to the Women’s Sport Trust.
Vice-Captain of the England Women team, Natalie Sciver, told Sporting Weekly she is enjoying this increase not just in cricket but women’s sports as a whole.
“It seems year on year people are like, ‘Oh women’s cricket is on the rise,’ it’s been on an upward curve really,” the 29-year-old Tokyo-born player said.
“But the more awareness that everyone has of each women’s sport is really good and the different aspects of it in social media obviously plays a big part of that.
“Having everything out there has really helped cricket and women’s sport stay on the rise.”
England play their next world cup group match on Monday against South Africa who beat Bangladesh in their opening game.
