Clare Connor, the managing director of women’s cricket at the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), has admitted that England are way behind Australia in terms of fitness and ability to perform under pressure.
Connor also revealed she is considering bringing in voices from outside the current ECB setup to ensure a “thorough and honest” review in the wake of England’s embarrassing 16-0 Ashes whitewash.
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“There is added accountability to review this at a deeper level because it’s the Ashes and because the scoreline has been so disappointing,” Connor said. “We won’t shy away from difficult and honest conversations about how to take the team forward. It will be thorough, it will be honest. We will consider bringing some independents into that process.”
Following England’s defeat by an innings in the Melbourne Test on Saturday, Heather Knight admitted she was considering her future as captain, while the coach, Jon Lewis, insisted he is the “right guy” to continue to lead the team.
Connor, though, refused to commit to either of their long-term futures, saying only that she would be speaking to both of them as part of the ECB’s post-tour review. An outcome of the review is expected within the next three to four weeks, to enable any changes time to bear fruit before October’s 50-over World Cup in India.
Her firmest criticism was reserved for Sophie Ecclestone, who earlier in the tour refused to do an interview with ex-England cricketer and TV pundit Alex Hartley – apparently due to Hartley’s remarks about the team’s lack of fitness. “That was an unfortunate incident that won’t happen again,” Connor said, in a tone reminiscent of her former career as a schoolteacher.
Connor denied that the incident was symptomatic of a broader cultural issue within the team. “I don’t recognise the narrative around the players being too comfortable,” she said. “This group of players work extremely hard. A lot of that goes unseen. There is a culture of improvement, of wanting to be the best.”
England have come under fire during the series for their poor efforts in the field, culminating in eight dropped catches on day two at the MCG. It offered a dramatic contrast with some of Australia’s own feats, most memorably a spectacular parried-boundary catch by Ash Gardner during the Hobart one-day international.
Connor acknowledged that England had been “outperformed in every facet of the game”, including fitness levels, and said that the ruthless Australian line-up had “taken the standard of international women’s cricket to another level”.
“It’s been very evident that they are setting new standards of athleticism in our sport. That’s an area where we have been outshone,” she said. “Our players will have to look at that level of athleticism and speed and power, and see that as a new benchmark.”
Connor added that one of the issues England faced was the lack of competitive bilateral cricket between Ashes series and World Cups. Last summer, England whitewashed Pakistan and New Zealand in back-to-back white-ball series, but Connor admitted these contests did not replicate the pressure players faced against Australia.
“The run-in to the T20 World Cup, we had dominated all of the cricket we’d played in for almost 18 months,” she said. “We have got some real thinking and work to do about pressure. In their sporting careers so far, some of our players haven’t been under much pressure. We’ve got to work out how to create more of that, perhaps artificially or through different scenarios, certainly for our younger players coming through.”
