The English pacer also discussed about her bowling plans for the upcoming T20 World Cup in Bangladesh
It tells the confidence a player has in their ability and the security they experience in their national team setup when they are denied the opportunity to participate in the biggest women’s T20 league in the world.
Lauren Bell missed the second edition of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) to focus on the series against New Zealand, which began in the last week of the WPL. This was after she had been an integral part of the UP Warriorz setup in the inaugural edition, where she was also coached by Jon Lewis, the English women’s team head coach.
Speaking before the second T20I against Pakistan at Northampton, Bell was quite sure about where her loyalties lay in this new lucrative world for a woman of her skill.
“I feel really fortunate that I have so much cricket on offer to me, but it’s just unrealistic to be able to play it all. I obviously wanted to go to the WPL. But my focus will be international cricket at the moment,” Bell said.
It speaks of the confidence she has in her place in the English setup that she doesn’t need to find new avenues to showcase her impressive fast bowling talent.
Ever since she performed well in the Ashes series, picking up 14-wickets in seven multiformat games, she has inspired enough confidence in Lewis and his management to trust her with the ball. In fact, lately, she has looked like the leading pacer of the English side.
“When your captain and your coach back you, it’s the best feeling you can have when you go onto a cricket pitch, knowing that you have the support and the backing of everyone,” Bell remarked.
“Jon [Lewis] is really clear on what my role is, it will always be to top and tail the innings. Before he came in, I was obviously in and out of the team a lot, so I feel like it’s really pushing my game forward and giving me a lot of confidence.”
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That confidence has further instigated her to keep enhancing her skills. Bell feels that despite missing a great chance to play in subcontinent wickets in the WPL, she has enough experience in her tank to get herself completely ready for the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh.
“Obviously the girls who played in India, they got a chance to play against the best players in the world in subcontinental conditions, but we had a series in India before Christmas, and I went to the WPL the year before, so it’s not going to be completely new to me,” she said.
“Even though we’re not there yet, that doesn’t mean that I can’t start prepping for how it’s going to be in Bangladesh, and what I really need to nail on before I get there.”
Talking about what kinds of plans she and Lewis are preparing for the World Cup, her answer was ‘straight’ and simple, but it also highlighted the aggressive wicket-taking intent that marks Jon Lewis’s approach.
“The main message is just to look to take wickets, and to be really attacking,” Bell said.
“He [Lewis] wants our first thought to be ‘how am I going to get this player out?’ In Bangladesh, it’s going to be really important to keep the stumps in play and maybe a lot of pace-off will be the best option. So it’s about nailing our skills and working on a bit of consistency.
“…when we get to Bangladesh, if we can bowl as straight as possible with any sort of lateral movement, I think we’ll be really in the game,” Bell added.
England are placed in Group B along with West Indies, South Africa, Scotland and Bangladesh at the T20 World Cup and will play all their group stage games in Dhaka.