Kate Cross is hoping “the queen of English cricket”, head coach Charlotte Edwards, will help lead England again to the highest of the worldwide recreation as they step up their Girls’s World Cup preparations.
England face India within the first of three one-day internationals in Southampton on Wednesday – reside on Sky Sports activities Cricket from 12.30pm (first ball, 1pm) – off the again of a 3-2 T20 sequence defeat by the identical opposition.
Edwards, who captained England to 50-over and T20 World Cup glory in 2009, changed Jon Lewis as head coach in April after the workforce had been swept within the winter’s Girls’s Ashes, following on from a group-stage exit within the 2024 T20 World Cup.
“She is the queen of English cricket, isn’t she?” Cross mentioned of Edwards.
“I spoke in a press convention months in the past about how Lottie was the captain that gave me my debut cap, so it is type of like a full-circle second for me the place the most effective English cricketers to play the sport is now main the workforce.
“She’s so keen about English cricket and so keen about ladies’s cricket. She’s the largest badger I do know – she’s actually watched each ball that you simply bowl or each ball that you simply face, she’s actually on it. She’s bought about seven laptops, I feel, to observe all of the [T20] Blast video games.
“But her knowledge around the game is just phenomenal, so I think we feel really lucky that we’ve had a coach with that sort of experience, but also with the career that she had in the game, come in to help guide us and make us a better team, so it’s been brilliant.”
Charlotte Edwards captained England to 50-over and T20 World Cup glory in 2009 and has since taken over as head coach in April
Cross added of her former captain turned coach: “She’s just not changed at all. She’s still the same Lottie that was my captain eight or nine years ago, so it’s been really lovely for me personally to have her around.
“She’s simply nice enjoyable as properly. She’s all the time chuckling and making you snort, which is a very nice place to be in a global dressing room.”
One of the key criticisms levelled at England during the T20 World Cup and Ashes failures that led to a change in head coach was fitness and fielding standards.
During the T20 series defeat to India, England’s fielding – dropped catches, in particular – came under the spotlight again but Cross stressed that time is needed for the hard work the team is putting in on that front to pay dividends.
England seamer Kate Cross returns to the squad for the ODI sequence
“It’s difficult. I know we’re getting still quite a lot of press around our fielding. It’s not where we want it to be and we know there’s been some mistakes made in key moments,” Cross mentioned.
“But hopefully if we can be judged in six months’, eight months’, 12 months’ time when the new regime has had a chance to kind of bed in, then hopefully those comments that are made will be… not fairer, because I think the comments that were being made are quite fair at the moment.
“However you may solely then see the adjustments which can match with the brand new regime that Lottie needs to usher in.”
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England seal dramatic win over India on the final ball at Edgbaston within the fifth ladies’s T20I.
Cross added: “Obviously, winning is really important. But I think for us as a team, it’s about working out how we want to play our one-day cricket under Lottie.”
“There’s a line drawn in the sand with that [T20] series. Obviously, with the result, it wasn’t the way we wanted the series to go.
“It is a contemporary begin by way of we’re nil-nil once more now [in the ODIs], aren’t we? And it is a possibility to attempt to get a win on the on the board tomorrow to go 1-0 up within the sequence.”
England vs India schedule
All times UK and Ireland; all live on Sky Sports
T20 international series
One-day international series
- First ODI: Wednesday July 16 (1pm) – Southampton
- Second ODI: Saturday July 19 (11am) – Lord’s
- Third ODI: Tuesday July 22 (1pm) – Chester-le-Street
Watch the first women’s one-day international between England and India, live on Sky Sports Cricket from 12.30pm on Wednesday (first ball at 1pm) or stream and not using a contract.
