Anya Shrubsole: England will believe they can go 'toe-to-toe' with Australia

Since then, Heather Knight’s team has reached the last four on four separate occasions across the 20- and 50-over World Cups, including two finals in 2018 and 2022. However, Australia have lifted the trophy on each occasion, most recently in South Africa in February 2023, where they claimed their sixth T20 title in seven stagings since 2010.

The Aussies remain the strong favourites for this year’s event in the UAE, having marched through to the semi-finals in an unbeaten start to their campaign. However, England are also flying high on the other side of the draw, and will remain on course to meet Australia in the final if they can avoid defeat to West Indies in their final group match on Tuesday.

“England are pretty well placed,” Shrubsole told ESPNcricinfo. “Australia just have that belief that they’re going to win, and more often than not, they do. But I sense from this group, they really do believe that they can beat Australia. And I would argue, at times previously, that out-and-out belief maybe wasn’t there. I think that Ashes [last summer] gives them a huge amount of confidence.”

That remarkable series in June and July 2023 ended as an 8-8 draw, with Australia’s victory in the one-off Test at Trent Bridge meaning that England went into the white-ball leg of the series realistically needing at least five victories in the six matches to reclaim the Ashes. In the end, they came agonisingly close, landing 2-1 wins in both the T20I and ODI series, which still amounted to Australia’s first losses in a white-ball bilateral series since 2017-18.

“It’s one thing doing it in a bilateral series, compared to doing it in a World Cup final, and that’s one of the things that Australia have in their favour,” Shrubsole said. “But that Ashes performance showed that, if England put them under pressure and play really good cricket, they can go toe-to-toe with them.”

England’s first three matches of the ongoing T20 World Cup were in Sharjah, where the slow, low surfaces played very much into the squad’s strengths, with no fewer than four frontline spinners featuring in their opening wins over Bangladesh and South Africa. They tweaked that formula a touch in their most recent match against Scotland, with Lauren Bell slotting in as an out-and-out seam option, but Shrubsole is impressed with England’s willingness to dispense with convention and back the options that suited their requirements.

“England have got to be agile, but that quartet of spinners has been working really well,” she said. “Linsey Smith bowls so well in the powerplay, it allows Sophie Ecclestone to bowl more through the middle and at the death. But those four spinners are outstanding, and a real asset to England.”

England’s captain, Knight, is now approaching her ninth year in the role, having taken over from Charlotte Edwards in June 2016. It’s a tenure that has coincided with the exponential growth of the women’s game, meaning she has needed to be a spokesperson off the pitch as well as a leader on it, and for the most part Shrubsole believes she has balanced those requirements with impressive agility.

“She’s had to grow as women’s cricket has grown, and she’s been a real figurehead for that,” Shrubsole said. “She speaks about the game really well, and tries to push the agenda, which can be pretty time-consuming and draining at times, and she’s had to work through a couple of coaches as well in that time. She seems to have really embraced the change that Jon Lewis has brought in. And she’s someone who keeps evolving her game as well, and leading from the front in that perspective.”

“One of her biggest strengths is her calmness,” Shrubsole said. “She’s pretty unflappable. She’s the sort of person you’d want in a sticky situation, especially a run-chase. She thinks really clearly about what she’s doing in the game, and when she’s at full flow, she’s pretty hard to bowl at.

“She hits the ball harder than probably than any cricketer in the women’s game, especially off the back foot. But she’s just a really calming presence. She’s the sort of person that, when she’s batting, you think everything’s going to be okay.”

Shrubsole herself retired from professional cricket at the end of last summer, bowing out in glory at Lord’s once more with victory in the Women’s Hundred final. This month, however, she renewed her association with the ground as she took up a new role as chair of MCC’s Women’s Players and Fixtures sub-committee, with a remit to drive female playing membership at the club.

“I’m honoured to be able to give back to cricket a little bit, and hopefully do something that has a meaningful impact,” Shrubsole said, with Lord’s set to host its first women’s Test, against India, in 2025.

Lord’s did not admit its first female members until 1999, and last year the club was criticised by the Independent Commission for Equity in Cricket (ICEC) review for its failure to do more for the women’s game, with the report finding that “the home of cricket was principally a home for men”. However the club’s female playing base has been growing year on year, and Shrubsole hopes that her involvement can help to accelerate that change.

“Everyone is aware of the need for MCC to change things a bit with regards to gender equality, but some huge strides have been made in that space, which is really exciting, and hopefully I can help push things on,” Shrubsole said.

“In the 14-15 years I was playing for England, if we don’t count the World Cup, we had maybe two or three games at Lord’s, which doesn’t feel like enough. It feels like there should be a Women’s International at Lord’s every summer, but with the Test next year, that seems like it’s moving in the right direction.”

Anya Shrubsole is the new chair of MCC’s Women’s Players and Fixtures sub-committee. Anyone interested in joining MCC should contact the Club by emailing women.cricket@mcc.org.uk

Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket