Thursday, March 19, 2009

Savour the moment as England's women lead the way

The ECB's strategy for women's cricket is paying off as England prepare to take on New Zealand in Sunday's World Cup final
This Sunday an English cricket team will play a World Cup final. That feels good, so good, to type that I just have to do it again. This Sunday an English cricket team will play a World Cup final. I'm sorry, I just have to do that once more. Bear with me. This Sunday an English cricket team will play a World Cup final. Whisper those words to yourself. Roll them around your tongue. Savour them. They haven't been heard or written in 16 years.
English fans are not so blessed with success that they can let such a thing slip by unnoticed, but we almost have. Over the past 18 months England's women's team has become the best in the world, retaining the Ashes in Australia, winning one-day series against New Zealand and the West Indies and then whitewashing South Africa and India. Last night's defeat to Australia in a dead pool match ended England's winning streak at 17 straight games, equalling the world record. They will now face New Zealand in the final.
For the team, their success so far in the World Cup is not a surprise. For the rest of us though, Sky's coverage of the tournament has made for a pleasant revelation. "If I'm honest I'd not seen a huge amount of women's cricket prior to this tournament," the Sky presenter Nick Knight remarked, doing his best to mark the genuine astonishment in his voice, "and do you know? They're good. Really, really good." He's not wrong. England have three of the world's top ten ranked batters, and four of the top ten bowlers.
As Clare Connor, the England and Wales Cricket Board's head of women's cricket, says "These things don't just happen by accident." Connor was appointed in 2007. She had been retired from international cricket for two years, and was working as a sports teacher and head of marketing for Brighton College. "Taking the job was a complete change of lifestyle and career. There was no way I was going to take it on unless I could make a massive difference to the players on the pitch." Between the lines, Connor is implying that the ECB's approach to the women's game had to change, and it did.
"The ECB don't get enough credit for what they have done in that time," she explains. "We've hired a new full-time coach in Mark Lane and an experienced assistant in Jack Birkenshaw, we've got a full-time strength and conditioning coach and we've just appointed a full-time physio. None of that would be possible if the ECB hadn't backed us as they have."
Charlotte Edwards, the team's current captain, echoes that. "The ECB have played a major role in this, as have Sport England and Chance to Shine. They recognised they were losing a lot of 28-29-year-old players from the game. The coaching contracts we've got now have enabled us to commit to cricket. To be able to work and to play cricket at the same time is great."
Along with the appointments of Connor and Lane, the introduction of coaching contracts has been one of the biggest reasons for the improvement in standards. Edwards is one of ten players who now works as a coach in schools through the Chance to Shine project. "I do 25 hours a week when I'm not playing for England. I've been doing it for a year now and it is one of the best things I've ever done. To go into schools and be so hands-on has been so rewarding for me." The ECB has developed a smart system that improves grassroots and also pays for senior players to stay in the game.
The contracts have also enabled six of the players to spend part of the winter playing grade and club cricket in Australia, something Knight and Lane believe was crucial in getting the players acclimatised for the World Cup. There was also a ten-day training camp in Bangalore in November. "We've been tough on the girls, ruthless at times," Edwards explains, "That was something we realised we needed to do two years ago. We needed tougher players and tougher people to play in international cricket. We turned a corner there."
The extra time spent playing and training together has helped foster a strong team spirit. "I like to see people with a smile on their face," the head coach, Mark Lane, explains. "I like people to enjoy each other's company and enjoy their cricket because when people are relaxed and enjoying themselves you see the true person, in cricket and life." Lane, who has been coaching women's cricket for 20 years, could not be happier himself. "This for me is the perfect job, the girls are great to work with and Clare is a great boss to work for."
"Going through these last months together has meant we're all friends not just team-mates," explains Sarah Taylor, the team's 19-year-old 'keeper-batter, "and we enjoy each other's successes. We're all pretty similar ages within the team so we've all grown up playing cricket together over the last year." It's a refreshing change in comparison to the often gloomy mood and infighting that has been seen in the England's men's dressing room at times this year. Taylor is so happy about being in the World Cup final that she giggles in disbelief when the topic is mentioned.
The success of the younger players is one of the most satisfying things about the team over the last year. As Connor explains "We'd found in the past that we'd picked players, I was one myself, because they were talented. But they really weren't ready for the environment of international cricket. Now we prepare them to pull on a full England shirt and know exactly what's required of them at that level."
It was to that end that the ECB established an academy side, who will play Pakistan in the summer, and go on their first tour the following winter. The county programme has also been expanded from six to ten matches with a supplementary Twenty20 Cup, and a Super Fours competition has been brought in to bridge the "gap between county cricket and international cricket. The aim is to take players, whether they're 18 or 25 and make sure they're ready to put on that full England shirt and perform."
"To be perfectly honest," says Edwards with all the satisfaction of a player who suffered a fair few defeats over a long career, "we're the envy of a lot of the teams here. A lot of other countries are trying to emulate what we've been doing. That's a good step for women's cricket, with the ECB taking that step I think it will help kick other boards into helping their women be more successful."
Connor is a little more circumspect. I don't think we're streets ahead of Australia, India or New Zealand in how professional we are. But we're certainly setting a very high standard in everything that we're doing. And we haven't made it yet. We haven't won a World Cup since 1993. Hopefully I'll be able to say something different next week. Then it's a case of trying to hang on to that edge.
"This is the challenge for the next ten years. There's probably a whole host of Sarah Taylors and Laura Marshes out there with the same amount of sporting and athletic ability, but in the past it has been pot luck whether they've fallen into cricket." Taylor and Marsh, along with a third team-mate, Holly Colvin, all studied at Brighton College on a Clare Connor cricket scholarship "specifically to Brighton College to play boys' cricket". That path, Connor thinks, will be key to making the next generation of players even more successful.
"There is great work going on in the playgrounds and classrooms and Chance to Shine is unearthing loads of young cricketers for clubs. But if we spot a really talented 12-year-old we need to get them into Brighton College, or Millfield, Oakham or other schools with big cricketing reputations. Then they're training four days a week with the lads, and suddenly their rate of acceleration of skill levels and mental toughness goes through the roof. Once this World Cup is over, those are the ideas I need to explore. It's an exciting time."
Taylor herself was spotted by a coach who visited her school and "asked whether I'd like to trial for Sussex under-11 girls, who I didn't even know existed. I used to play tennis at county level, so it was a choice between that and cricket. But playing cricket with the boys at Brighton was a great few years of my life, and it was where my real love for cricket came from. Now, I don't think it could have worked out any better." More and more girls are making the same decision.
"Hopefully," says Edwards, "I'm keeping a lot of schoolkids up late at night following my progress." Not just the kids. This is a happy team with the winning knack who may just be about to become the best in the world. And what a refreshing prospect that is.

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