As things move quickly towards the much-hyped ICC Women’s ODI World Cup 2025, teams are looking to iron out the chinks in their armour by playing more regularly as part of preparation for the marquee event set to be played in India and Sri Lanka in less than 50 days from now. India recently toured England for a white ball series and came back home with a convincing 3-2 series win in T20Is and a 2-1 series win in One-Day Internationals.
It may have been troubling signs for the English side to lose a crucial home series just ahead of the World Cup; however, the T20I and ODI series defeat against India were not a “reality check”, feels head coach Charlotte Edwards.
“We were massively challenged and that’s how we want women’s cricket to be. It wasn’t a reality check. We know we can beat India. We are going into a World Cup where we know if we play our best, we can beat any team,” said Edwards to the BBC Stumped podcast.
England missed the experience of Heather Knight, while captain Nat Sciver-Brunt also missed the final two T20Is with injury.
Fielding standard, a big problem
Edwards replaced Jon Lewis as the head coach of England in April, who was sacked after England’s disastrous 16-0 Ashes whitewash. Under Edwards in her first series as head coach, England thrashed a depleted West Indies 3-0 in the ODI series and also whitewashed them in the T20I series with the same margin before losing against India.
The major scrutiny for England was their fielding and ability to perform under pressure but Edwards vowed to change the team’s attitude, fielding and overall fitness. “It is something we are working on, we know we have that tag now. Sometimes I get frustrated because we can drop one catch and we are labelled a bad fielding team, even though we have fielded really well otherwise. I am confident we can get to a place where people are talking really positively about our fielding,” she said.
