Chuffed Lauren Winfield braces for exciting T20 World Cup

Lisa Keightley as the head coach, the presence of Sarah Glenn, Mady Villiers and Freya Davies in the side for a World Cup… these are things that England is not fully accustomed to yet. But the mystery of the unknown is what will be exciting to see is what Lauren Winfield believes.

“I don’t think we know how good we can be yet,” said the versatile batter.

“That’s a really exciting space for us to be in. We’ve had a change in coach and also our batting order, while there are also a few young players who have come in which has changed the dynamic within the team - it looks completely different to the one we had at the last T20 World Cup in 2018. We haven’t been together as a T20 side for very long so we don’t really know what we can do yet.

In the recently-concluded tri-series in Australia, England impressed in bits and pieces. While they won the Super Over against Australia, they went down to India, thanks to captain Harmanpreet Kaur’s brilliance. But a loss in the final league game against their Ashes rivals knocked them out of the series.

The tri-series was a good measure of where we’re at,” said Winfield, who had jointly top-scored in their final clash along with Katherine Brunt. “We’ll take massive confidence from beating Australia in the Super Over and knowing we can get over the line when playing the favourites. It was the best preparation we could have possibly had.”

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England were the runners-up of the T20 World Cup 2018 and they kick off their 2020 campaign with a game against South Africa on February 23. Winfield said that this could be a well-contested, close tournament.

“I think this will be the best World Cup we’ve ever had. With this format, in this country and with the groups as they are - it’s going to be the hottest tournament ever,” said the 29-year-old.

“T20 is such a fast, razzmatazz format of the game. Every team was put under the pump in the tri-series, we know it always has the chance of coming down to a last-over finish, whether you’re batting or bowling. It’s not just about two teams anymore but everyone is going to be a real contest. That’s absolutely what we want. We want to be pushed to the limits every single time we play.”