The old guard see England comfortably into the final

• Knight and Sciver-Brunt show class and experience to steer unsteady England to Lord’s showdown

• Old enemy Australia await England on Sunday

• Coach Edwards vindicated after 15 months of sticking with the core of the team who failed at the last World Cup.

When Charlotte Edwards became England coach in the Spring of 2025 after a T20 World Cup group stage exit and an Ashes whitewash, she had 15 months to prepare a team for a home World Cup at which they were expected to compete strongly. Getting to the final would be a minimum requirement and winning the trophy a strong aspiration. At this point, she had a crucial decision to make: to stick with the old guard or to have a huge clear-out.

England consistently crumbled under pressure. Their fielding was awful and their fitness and athleticism and attitude questionable. They were being scrutinised forensically and criticised justifiably by commentators, pundits and former players. It was a very difficult moment.

Many observers expected to see a clear-out, indeed, there was much external pressure to have a clean break with the past and to ditch the likes of Heather Knight, Danni Wyatt-Hodge and Amy Jones.  

However, Edwards persisted with selecting the same players who had failed so badly in Australia. It was seen by many as a curious decision. One which lacked courage and failed to grasp the reality of English cricket’s situation.

The initial result was not good. A home series defeat by India and an ODI World Cup semi final defeat to South Africa. There were many doubters and many questioned why this team were so clearly underachieving and why a wider group of younger players was not being given a chance.

Today at the Oval, these questions were rebutted convincingly. Today was the day that the old guard demonstrated why Edwards was so determined to keep them in the side.

South Africa had England in all sorts of trouble. Having won the toss and invited England to bat, Marizanne Kapp and Shabnim Ismail tore through England’s top order batters like a hurricane force wind. Amy Jones meekly surrendered her wicket to Ismail’s first delivery. The following over Wyatt-Hodge played down the wrong line to Kapp and had her off stump removed. The next over, Alice Capsey played across a straight one from Ismail and was given out LBW. England were staring down the barrel of semi-final humiliation against South Africa again.

It was at this point that Knight and Sciver-Brunt showed the calmness, the strategy and the doggedness that only comes with experience. 20 balls of Ismail and Kapp were negotiated with the respect and caution these two greats of the game deserve. The veteran England batters took 19 runs from these 20 balls, but crucially, they did not give their wickets away in the knowledge that easier pickings were on their way.

Once the likes of Ayabonga Khaka, Nadine de Klerk and Chloe Tryon came in, Sciver-Brunt in particular let loose. Those three bowlers conceded 90 runs from the 8 overs they bowled between them, thus highlighting the areas of weakness in the South African side. By contrast, Kapp and Ismail conceded only 47 from their 8 overs and produced three wickets. If South Africa are to win an ICC event, they need to address this discrepancy between their best and the rest. 

Sciver-Brunt and Knight’s partnership of 133 runs from 90 balls took England from ruinous despair to the brink of victory in just over an hour. What does this achievement tell us about them and about this England side?

It tells us that Charlotte Edwards knows her players. And she even knows all the players who are not yet her players. She has a little black book about everyone. When she chose to make Sciver-Brunt her captain and chose too to retain the services of Knight and Jones and Wyatt-Hodge, she knew that in these players lay her best opportunity of winning the World Cup.

So she backed them, and when people doubted her she pushed back and backed them again. And when Knight injured her hamstring and couldn’t play for months on end before the ODI World Cup, she backed her and picked her anyway. And when Sciver-Brunt injured her calf and couldn’t play for most of this season and needed strange magnetic, experimental treatments, she backed her too.

And now England progress to a final against Australia on Sunday. England will be underdogs. Australia have already chased down 170 with an over to spare against India at Lord’s, so England’s batters need to raise the bar once again if they are going to lift the trophy.

Charlotte Edwards has got all the big calls right in this tournament. Do we trust her to make the right calls for the final? Without doubt we do. England will have to play out of their skins and Australia will have to have a rare off day, but it is just possible that two of the old timers who lifted the ODI World Cup at Lord’s nine long summers ago will be there again on Sunday to lift a second trophy.