Former international Alex Hartley has criticized the fitness of England players who took part in the disappointing Women’s T20 World Cup, saying: “There are players who are letting the team down.”
England lost to West Indies by six wickets in Dubai on Tuesday and were knocked out of the tournament after a dismal showing on the field. “It’s really disappointing,” Hartley said on the BBC’s Test Match Special. “There’s going to be a lot of questions and obviously some of them are around fitness. England need to get more fit. Australia have 15 or 16 real athletes. . Look at our team – I won’t say their names, but you can tell by looking at them.”
ECB chief executive Richard Gould said player fitness in the women’s game was “something we want to improve”. “Athletic ability in cricket is becoming more and more important,” Gould said. He was in Sharjah for England’s World Cup match against Scotland and is in Multan for the men’s Test. “The 1% are now starting to become more and more important.
“We want to give all our players as much support as possible. We have been under-investing in the women’s game for a long time. Until 2019 there were 18 professional players. Next year we’ll be closer to 200. This is great progress in a short period of time, and we’ll continue to improve.”
England’s disappointing performance in what was essentially a knockout game against the West Indies was reminiscent of recent defeats in high-stakes matches. England lost the last 50-over World Cup final in 2022, the 2016 World Cup semi-final and the 2016 World Cup semi-final. 2023 T20 World Cup and 2018 Finals. In 2020, the match was canceled due to rain and no balls were bowled, resulting in a loss in the semi-finals, and India advanced to the final based on their performance in the group stage.
“We’ve been losing important games for such a long time,” said Hartley, who was part of the team that won the 2017 World Cup. “Everyone panics when England are under pressure, especially when Sophie Ecclestone slows down and doesn’t take wickets. She can’t do that over and over again. Captain (Heather Knight), There will be questions about management, fitness and what’s going on on the England side, and understandably things need to change.
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“When you haven’t won a World Cup for a long time, things need to change. I don’t know where that came from. I think (head coach) John Lewis is the right person for the job. He’s a woman changed cricket and made women realize that they can have a better work-life balance. I don’t know if they may have gone too far.”
