England captain Nat Sciver-Brunt believes her team has evolved significantly since the start of her leadership, even though their World Cup 2025 campaign ended in a semi-final defeat against South Africa. Both Sciver-Brunt and head coach Charlotte Edwards, who began their tenure a little over six months ago, view this journey as the beginning of a new and promising era for England women’s cricket.
England recorded five victories in eight matches but couldn’t cross the final-four stage, suffering a 125-run loss to a dominant South Africa women’s team led by Laura Wolvaardt and Marizanne Kapp. Despite the disappointment, Sciver-Brunt emphasized that the progress made over the past months far outweighs the setback.
“We’ve come a long way since the summer,” Sciver-Brunt said after the loss, as quoted from the official website of the ICC.
“We’re a different side from then and we’ve learnt a lot,” she added. “This will hurt but hopefully in time we’ll be able to take the learnings from it and move forward because we’ve made some great strides so far in quite a short space of time. It’s really exciting where we can go. To beat the best teams, you really have to be at your best and hopefully we’ll come back stronger the next time,” she said.
Edwards Praises Team Effort and Emerging Talent
Coach Charlotte Edwards echoed Sciver-Brunt’s sentiments, highlighting the resilience of the team and the contributions from both senior and emerging players.
“I think at the start we said we could beat anyone, but we had to play at our best. We weren’t at our best today and South Africa were,” Edwards said.
“So that’s probably one of the reasons we’re going home early,” she added.
“But there’s been so many positives, I think how the team have played throughout the comp. We’ve shown some real fight. I think some of our younger players have really stepped up and some of our older ones as well,” she noted.
“But I think it’s been a real sort of team effort throughout, which is great. We’ve been part of some fantastic games of cricket as well, so we’ve learned a lot. But ultimately it’s on today, isn’t it? And we haven’t played quite as well as we would have liked,” she said.
Edwards expressed satisfaction with the squad’s overall performance and pointed out that the side had shown improvement in attitude, approach, and consistency since her appointment earlier this year.
Focus Shifts to the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026
Looking ahead, England will now turn their focus to the upcoming ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026, which they are set to co-host with Wales. Edwards confirmed that player development and experimentation would be key priorities leading up to the tournament.
“We’ve got a T20 (World Cup) that will be our focus now from when the players come back in December through to obviously the English summer where we’ll be playing at home,” Edwards added.
“We’ll be on various camps with the players here and obviously some younger players. So, we’ll be looking at a variety of people throughout that time,” she noted.
“And I think it’s not a time now to say who’s going to be coming in, who’s going to be coming out. It’s about us going back, reflecting. But equally on your question around – we do need to improve our batting, I think, don’t think it’s been consistent enough at times and equally with our bowling,” she said.
“I think all aspects of our game we need to look at certainly our death stuff. So, there’s lots to go away and work on which is exciting from a coaching perspective. But obviously reflecting on today and the tournament, there’s been some good stuff and some stuff we need to improve,” she added.
With renewed confidence, Nat Sciver-Brunt and Charlotte Edwards are determined to refine every area of play. Their vision remains clear — to transform the lessons of the World Cup 2025 into strength and momentum for a powerful comeback in the T20 World Cup 2026.
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