A round-robin exit in the 2024 T20 World Cup, a semi-final loss in the 2023 T20 World Cup, a medal-less finish in the 2022 Commonwealth Games at home, and a runners-up medal in the ODI World Cup months before that. Seizing the big moments in pressure situations is one of the aspects England head coach Charlotte Edwards wanted the team to get better at, when she took over in her role in April this year.
Edwards doesn't like losing, after all. Between her playing and coaching careers, she is the winner of five Ashes, two World Cups, five domestic titles, two WPLs and one Hundred. But the margin of this semi-final defeat to South Africa - 125 runs - once again turned the spotlight on their stuttering campaign with the bat, which had its weaknesses exposed right from the start, against some of the lower-ranked teams.
The way Amy Jones missed an inducker from Marizanne Kapp for a duck evoked memories of her missing similar deliveries against Bangladesh and Pakistan. When Heather Knight chopped on for a duck with tentative footwork, the struggles of England's top four against Pakistan's pace bowlers came rushing back. As much as this would pose questions for Jones, Tammy Beaumont and Knight, who all fell for ducks in a knockout clash, it also served as a reminder of how England's batters after No. 4 had barely made a mark in this World Cup.
If it was the first time that England lost two wickets without a run on the board in an ODI, and when their top three all bagged ducks in a scoreline of 1 for 3 - the joint-lowest for three-down in the history of 1517 women's ODIs - there was nowhere to hide for their misfiring middle- and lower-order. Until that point, the problems of those batters after Nat Sciver-Brunt at No. 4 had either been masked by five victories in the league stage or been made up for by the bulk of runs that were scored by the reliable hands of Sciver-Brunt and Knight.
Bangladesh were the first to make inroads into that batting order, reducing them to 78 for 5, also at Guwahati. A loss there might have given England a harsher reality check, had it not been for Knight's unbeaten 79 (and her large share of luck). Against Sri Lanka, England went past 250 despite being 168 for 6 after riding on Sciver-Brunt's century, while no other batter went past 32. When Pakistan restricted England to 133 for 9 in a truncated game, rain saved them from their inevitable blushes as Pakistan were 34 for 0 when it got called off. Against India, England would have hoped to see some contributions at last from the lower order, having moved to a flatter track in Indore, but their Nos. 5 to 7 managed all of 28 runs combined. However, their batting woes were eclipsed in a four-run heist which posed more questions for India than England, who had booked a semis berth.
By the time the league stage ended, however, England's Nos. 5 to 7 had the worst average for any team, the second-worst strike rate (61.59) only behind Pakistan, and they had struck the fewest fours and no sixes, which was the same as Pakistan.
"We do need to improve our batting, I don't think it's been consistent enough at times and equally with our bowling," Edwards said at the press conference after the semi-final exit. "Our batting has to improve, certainly that middle order and playing against spin, certainly slow spin and obviously bowling across all phases. We've not put a whole game together as a team and that's something we'll be going away looking at."
Once she gets home, Edwards' review of the lower-order is bound to put under the microscope the returns of Alice Capsey, who averaged 21 in the World Cup despite a half-century in the semi; Sophia Dunkley, who managed just 68 runs in 133 balls at 11.33, and Emma Lamb, who was dropped for Danni Wyatt-Hodge for the last league game, after she scored just 36 runs in five innings. When Wyatt-Hodge replaced Lamb against New Zealand with nothing for the team on the line, it started to raise questions whether England had drawn on the experience of Wyatt-Hodge a little too late, as it gave her the game-time of just seven balls before the knockouts.
"I think Emma Lamb, Sophia Dunkley, Alice Capsey had performed brilliantly coming into this tournament and I'm not the type of coach who's just going to keep swapping and changing," Edwards said. "We knew Danni Wyatt has played 300 games for England, so we knew she could fit in and she showed today that she can just zip into that position. I mean, people will look at that and think maybe we should have brought her in earlier. But we got to this point in the tournament, and we're really comfortable with the selections we've made throughout."
Capsey showed some signs of redemption at the end with a knock of 50 while stitching a century stand with Sciver-Brunt, while Wyatt-Hodge's quick 34 also gave England hope. However, the fact is that it all came a bit too late. On the day their top three had failed to score a single run, Edwards said they weren't at their "best" on Wednesday. They will need to find their best on home soil next summer, as the focus now shifts to the T20 World Cup which begins in just over six months' time.