Tammy Beaumont says fellow World Cup winner Anya Shrubsole will head into retirement having “revolutionised women’s cricket” and inspired young girls to become fast bowlers.
Southern Brave captain Shrubsole, who was instrumental in England becoming world champions in 2017, will end her professional career following this year’s Hundred, which starts next week.
She took 227 wickets in 173 matches in all formats during 14 years playing for her country and was the first woman to grace the front cover of the prestigious Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack.
The 31-year-old, who is bowing out at a similar time to former international team-mate and fellow pace bowler Katherine Brunt-Sciver, has expressed a desire to avoid a big send-off.
Yet England opener Beaumont believes that is unlikely to happen.
The Welsh Fire skipper said: “She’s going to hate it but there’s no chance she can retire quietly, is there?
“I mean, it’s the six-year anniversary of her (World Cup) heroics and she’s played in an era of TV, so they’re there forever.
“What her and Katherine Brunt have done over the years has revolutionised women’s cricket and made young girls want to be fast bowlers.
“The way she’s played the game, vice-captain of England, a real leader without shouting about it and she’s someone who desperately would like to go out quietly – but I’m afraid she’s got too good a record for that.
“She’s made a massive impact on the game. Certainly the people that played with her know what she brought to the team and not just the moments of brilliance on the pitch either.”
Bath-born Shrubsole was part of two Ashes-winning sides and hoisted aloft the 50-over World Cup in 2009 and again eight years later before retiring from international duty last year.
Her finest hour undoubtedly came at Lord’s in the 2017 final against India, which was in the balance before she tipped the scales decisively in England’s favour with figures of six for 46.
“It’s funny, when we were young I think we were on completely different pages,” continued Beaumont, speaking at the launch of KP Snacks’ community cricket pitches initiative which will fund 100 new pitches.
“She’s quite an introvert; I was quite loud and bouncing around the changing room, so we actually probably struggled to understand each other for the first few years.
“And then we did some personality testing and inside the booklet you got was (information) about how to talk to your exact opposite.
“We kind of worked on it and afterwards she was one of my best mates in the England team for quite a long time.”
Shrubsole begins the final competition of her distinguished career on Tuesday when Southern Brave, beaten finalists in 2021 and 2022, travel to Trent Rockets in the opening fixture of The Hundred.
“I’m trying desperately to retire quietly but no one really seems to be letting me,” she said.
“I guess there might be a little bit of emotion whenever that last game is and that’s not because it’s the wrong decision. I really am ready to retire.
“It would be lovely to win it having lost in the final a couple of times – I guess that would be the perfect ending.”
:: KP Snacks are funding 100 new community cricket pitches over the next three years. To find out more and search for a pitch visit: everyonein.co.uk/pitchfinder
IPL: Mumbai Indians condemned to last-place finish after 18-run defeat to Super Giants
Rohit Sharma's half-century was not enough for Mumbai Indians as they slipped to an 18-run defeat to Lucknow Super Giants at Wankhede Stadium.
The defeat consigned Mumbai to bottom place in the Indian Premier League for the second time in the space of three seasons, after losing 10 matches this year.
LSG were also left to lament their misfortune, as despite reaching 14 points, they did not qualify for the play-offs.
KL Rahul's 55 got the ball rolling for Lucknow, but their innings was ebbing out until Nicholas Pooran's dazzling 29-ball 75 took them to 214-6, despite the efforts of Nuwan Thushara (3-28) and Piyush Chawla (3-29), who stepped up in Jasprit Bumrah's absence.
Rohit's 38-ball 68 set the tone for what looked set to be a promising Mumbai chase, as he struck 13 boundaries around a short rain delay.
However, Mumbai went from 88 without loss to 120-5 in the space of six overs, leaving the tail with too much of a mountain to climb.
Data Debrief: Lucknow miss out
While Mumbai sit bottom of the pile yet again, it is a case of what might have been for LSG, who for the first time in their three-season history, failed to make the top four.
Fourteen points is often enough to get over the line and into the play-offs, but their poor net run rate of -0.667 means they miss out.
Tape ball programme can help England find unorthodox talent – Richard Gould
The England and Wales Cricket Board hopes to unearth a new seam of talent beyond the game’s traditional league structure with a national tape ball scheme that allows players to thrive without “whites, willow and leather”.
The practice of using a soft ball wrapped in electrical tape to aid swing and variable bounce is a common one in Asia, where it has helped produce express pace bowlers like Haris Rauf, Shaheen Afridi and spinners such as Rashid Khan and Shakib-al-Hasan, but has been slow to enter the mainstream conversation in the United Kingdom.
The Chance to Shine charity has long pioneered tape ball cricket as part of its engagement hubs and now, with the ECB keen to live up to its lofty aspiration of becoming the most inclusive team sport in the country, it is at the heart of a new core cities programme designed to engage ‘diverse communities in urban areas’.
Speaking at a launch event where games were hosted in a warehouse space in Birmingham, ECB chief executive Richard Gould was optimistic about reaching out to those with an interest in cricket but limited access to the pavilions and prepared pitches in the club setup.
“We talk about clubs with picket fences around them. In the past that has been seen as the preserve of the ECB. We’ve missed a complete trick on that,” he said.
“When we talk about the recreational game we’re not just talking about Premier League clubs and village cricket clubs now. We’re talking about all forms of cricket that take place.
“You can play the game anywhere, any time, with anybody, in any environment you want. You don’t have to have whites, willow and leather to do it. You can just pick up a bat and a ball and have some fun.”
As well as fulfilling its remit of reaching out to all comers at a grassroots level, Gould also believes there are benefits to finding cricketers with different styles who have learned the game outside the traditional, private-school heavy pathways.
“Without doubt there are,” he said. “We have to get out and try to find the talent. More to the point, we have to try and find talent in areas that we haven’t normally looked for it.
“I do think county pathways will be looking to make sure they don’t miss out on this talent. It’s just about punching through all of our normal procedures and finding ways to both get people in the game and unearthing that talent which may be unorthodox and great.”
Meg Lanning: Exercise obsession and not enough fuel led to Australia retirement
Former Australia captain Meg Lanning revealed her “obsession” with exercise and not eating enough precipitated her surprise international retirement late last year.
Lanning was at the helm of one of the most dominant eras the sport has ever seen but she missed last year’s Ashes for medical reasons and pulled the plug on her Australia career in November.
She opened up about her hidden health issues on the Howie Games podcast, explaining that running up to 90 kilometres a week coupled with eating two small meals a day led to her dropping from 64kg to 57kg.
View this post on Instagram“I was over-exercising and under-fuelling,” the 32-year-old said. “It wasn’t a physical thing. I’ve always been really physically active and liked that side of it, but it became a bit of an obsession.
“I’d maybe eat a couple of meals a day if I was lucky but they weren’t significant. Initially it didn’t start off as a deliberate thing, it just became a bit of a new normal.
“But it slowly crept into conscious decisions because essentially I felt good.
“I wasn’t getting injured like everybody was telling me I was going to do. It sort of just spiralled and I was in denial, even though everybody kept telling me something wasn’t quite right.
“I was not in a place to be able to go on tour and play cricket and give the commitment levels that were required for that Ashes series, mentally and physically.”
Lanning, who led Australia to five World Cup titles in total and Commonwealth Games glory in 2022, said her struggle was not officially diagnosed as an eating disorder.
“It wasn’t labelled as that but I was exercising a lot and I wasn’t eating enough to fuel that – it was a bit out of whack,” Lanning said.
“It was a bit of control because I felt very out of control with what my future looked like. I felt like I was in control of that and that made me feel better.”
Lanning sought help from medical professionals after also struggling with insomnia and continues to play domestically, while she has been signed for London Spirit for The Hundred this year.
“I dreaded night time because I knew I would go to bed and not be able to sleep,” she said. “That would make me so mad. I would just get more angry with myself. If you can’t sleep, you can’t do anything.
“I feel like I’m in a good spot now. Cricket is still part of what I do. But I wasn’t cut out for the international touring schedule and what came with all of that.”
SportsMax is the Caribbean sports channel of choice, committed to providing sporting content of the highest quality to the Caribbean, delivered by a team of highly innovative, passionate and qualified professionals.
(876) 619-7629
digitalmedia@sportsmax.tv
