New coach Edwards returns triumphant to Canterbury to claim a win for England

The Garden of England. There is something genteel and reassuring about the county of Kent: from Julius Caesar to Geoffrey Chaucer to Winston Churchill, they’ve all been here to fight their battles or tell their tales.

Photo Credit: England Cricket

The county’s landscape, with its oast houses tucked away round hedge-rowed lanes, its plentiful National Trust properties and its chalk white cliffs is quintessentially English. The Spitfire Ground in Canterbury somehow personifies these values: ancient trees which as saplings saw Cowdrey, Underwood and Knott in the 1960s and 70s, grew to oversee the burgeoning career of a young Charlotte Edwards in the 1990s and now tower over the ground as this same Charlotte Edwards brings her own England side to this old ground.

Canterbury is a real cricket ground. It is definitely not a stadium. With its porticos, clock tower, manual scoreboard (particularly its manual scoreboard) and grassy banks, its spectators with their camping chairs and neatly packed family picnics, it harks back to a more innocent time – a time when it was fine to have a lime tree growing inside the boundary, as one simply could play around it.

It was an apt location for Edwards to begin the next chapter of her much-garlanded career. The winner of World Cups and Ashes as a player, the winner of domestic and international tournaments as a coach, she began her cricketing journey as a teenaged Kent player in 1999 and remained with the county for 16 years. She now has been given the job of resurrecting the hopes of English women’s cricket after the abject failure in January’s Ashes and in last October’s World Cup, when they were ejected from the tournament by today’s visitors, the West Indies.

After the threat of rain in the minutes leading up to the toss, the sun came out to welcome in the new era. Around the ground, families were unfolding camping chairs, children in their smart independent school hoodies were finding patches of grass for their impromptu games of cricket, the international summer was about to begin.

Em Arlott received her England cap in a short ceremony before the game, such a richly deserved reward for hard work and perseverance from one of English cricket’s unsung heroes.

The feelgood vibes of the new era continued to permeate proceedings. Lauren Bell produced a double wicket maiden from her second over. There was a début wicket for Arlott, then a crafty and well-executed run out, and a notable wicket from the returning Issy Wong at the end of the 12th over: about to bowl the final ball of the over, captain Sciver-Brunt at mid-on had a quiet word with her, then moved fine leg into the circle and moved herself back to long-on. Wong’s subsequent back of the hand ball was heaved by Shabika Gajnabi into the grateful hands of England’s new captain in her new position at long-on. Captaincy looks easy when one does things like that. 

Sciver-Brunt admitted (rather surprisingly) in an interview after the game “Sometimes I can feel pretty muddled and like everything is going pretty quickly but today felt pretty calm for me and I was just enjoying it.” Anyone who witnessed the Commonwealth Games or the 2024 T20 World Cup group stage debacle against West Indies will agree with her honest assessment of two of her most notable previous attempts at captaincy. It is the hope of England fans that the influence and backing of Charlotte Edwards – and the detailed instructions and plans that go with that – will mean that there will be a lot less muddle and chaos in the future, particularly in the moments when the pressure and the stakes are at their highest.

As West Indies wickets toppled at one end, there was a rock who remained solid at the other. Captain Hayley Matthews was playing with imperious confidence and swagger – belting the ball to all parts of the ground, farming the strike when necessary. Only when wicketkeeper Mandy Mangru joined her in the 14th over, with the score on 87/6 did she find a batter who could stay with her for a significant period. Between them they added 47 runs in 33 balls and helped push the West Indies towards a total which was defendable. Matthews got to the final over on 89 not out. She made sure that she kept the strike, then did exactly what she needed to do to extract the 11 runs needed to reach a stunning century from the final ball. The final analysis of West indies batting: Matthews 100 runs, 10 other teammates 40 runs, extras 6 runs. Technically not a one-woman-show, but not far from it. The 27-year-old Barbadian is at the peak of her powers, but none of her compatriots are anywhere near her level. The absence of Chinelle Henry, Stefanie Taylor and Deandra Dottin was felt most keenly in this game. It is difficult to see West Indies winning any game without some more support for their talismanic skipper.

As darkness descended upon Canterbury and advertising hoardings and giant plasma screens flashed like neon, England’s batters entered the fray. Soon the obligatory pyrotechnics were being activated as boundary after boundary was welcomed with a giant column of fire. Dunkley and Wyatt-Hodge speared the ball through the inner ring for boundaries, carrying the powerplay score beyond 50 as we were completing the sixth over. The loss of Wyatt-Hodge for 17 at this point and then the captain herself five balls later for a duck brought England their only moment of doubt in the whole game, but Dunkley and former skipper Knight never looked troubled. Only one West Indies bowler managed to bowl at a rate of less than 8 runs per over. (It was Hayley Matthews of course).

Therefore, in the 17th over, with 21 balls still to come, England completed their victory. We kid ourselves if we say that all our problems have been solved. Yet as starts go, this was a pretty good and promising one. Sciver-Brunt did not bowl and was out for a two-ball duck, yet it was still very much a good day for her. Dunkley scored 81 not out and looked solid. Heather Knight looked unhurried, yet was still striking at 159 for her 43 not out. Arlott, Wong, Smith and Bell all made good contributions. Others, such as Alice Capsey, will get their chance to shine on another occasion.

And so the Home Counties T20 Tour rolls on to Hove on Friday night and then through the Dartford Tunnel to Chelmsford on Bank Holiday Monday. England’s new dawn has begun with a convincing win, but greater challenges lie ahead.