English cricket has one internationally top-ranked player. She is not at fortress Edgbaston vibing with the Hollies Stand, but preparing for the start of her own summer campaign. Sophie Ecclestone is the world’s No 1 female T20 and ODI bowler. She first hit that mark in 2020 and has held on pretty tightly since, unusually combining supremacy on the field with remaining below the radar off it.
In the words of her captain, Heather Knight: “Soph is pretty direct and to the point. What you see is what you get.” Still only 24, she has been playing international cricket since she was 17. A slow left armer with extraordinary accuracy and strength, she stands at 5ft 11in (1.8m), her big hands allowing lots of purchase on the ball.
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For the England coach, Jon Lewis, it is the speed she bowls and the amount of revs she getsthat stand out. It has made her attractive to franchise competitions, this spring the subject of a bidding war, won by UP Warriorz, in the inaugural WPL.
A pre-Test training camp is taking place at Repton, a school of pinch-yourself facilities, where one side of a walkway nervous teenagers line up outside the GCSE exam hall while on the other England cricketers walk by, glistening from the gym.
A selection of benches look over the peachy field, one has a plaque for 1910 Wisden Cricketer of the Year, Douglas Carr: “Reptonian and cricket lover”.
Ecclestone has just come out of a strength and conditioning session followed by a long batting net. Her pony tail is as swishy as ever, she is polite, helpful, tired. The Ashes starts on Thursday with a Test, scheduled for five days for the first time in a women’s series. This will be followed by three ODIs and three T20s – with Trent Bridge, Edgbaston, the Oval and Lord’s hosting games.
Along with record-breaking advanced ticket sales, the team is shifting too. Anya Shrubsole and Katherine Sciver-Brunt have moved on and Ecclestone is suddenly a senior player, an essential bridge between the older group and the young starlets. “It’s quite weird,” she says. “I’ve always seen myself as a youngster, but now I’ve taken on a more responsible role. It’s really exciting for me, keeps me on the straight and narrow.”
She has also been invited to join the team’s brains trust, as well as taking on the captaincy with Manchester Originals in the Hundred. Knight is keen to pick more of her brain. “Soph brings a lot of energy and a lot of fun,” she says.
“It’s brilliant to be able to throw the ball to her. She’s very reliable at any stage of the innings, she loves being in the big moments, she’s at her best when someone is getting at her as she’s super-competitive – sometimes a bit too fiery.”
Aged five, Ecclestone joined Alvanley in Cheshire, where her older brother James was already playing and her dad, Paul, was a coach. Her natural ability shone and she spent much of her time playing with and against boys and men. She was swept up by Cheshire and later Lancashire, making her debut for them at 16 and was made an honorary life member of Alvanley in 2020.
In a dedication the club chairman wrote about her meteoric rise: “but above all the way she has taken it all in her stride and remained humble … always flying the Alvanley flag”.
The club, family, shopping and golf – she plays off 19 but wants to get down to single figures – are how Ecclestone relaxes when she is not playing. But nothing keeps her away from cricket for long.
“When I came out of school I went into a professional contract. I was the first person to do that and I was really buzzing that I didn’t have to go to college or university. Now the game is professional and I can just live happily and play cricket, which was always the dream.”
This winter, she played with Australian stand-in captain Alyssa Healy at the Sydney Sixers and UP Warriorz and she’s looking forward to renewing the rivalry.
“We definitely want to get one up on each other, we know how each other work now. It is going to be a good battle. Her, Ash [Ashleigh Gardner] and Pez [Ellyse Perry] – I get on with them really well. I’m really excited to see them all, which isn’t usually how it works.”
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As well as plucking wickets like plump strawberries, Ecclestone is eyeing up the allrounder spot vacated by Katherine Sciver-Brunt. “She’s more than capable,” says Lewis. “She can give it a biff but she’s better than that. She always underplays her ability. She’s the best female spin bowler in the world by a distance. What’s great about Soph is that there is no fuss, she just does her thing, she knows it inside out. The downside is that she doesn’t often get challenged – though she will this summer.
“What was really good in the WPL, [where Lewis was coach at UP Warriorz] was that she saw that Lauren Bell and Shabnim Ismail were on the reserves, and she said to me ‘I’m going to have bowl really well here aren’t I?’”
Lewis asked Lancashire to have her bowling in the nets with the men’s side, which they were happy to do. “The boys were very complimentary about her skills,” says their assistant coach Carl Crowe. “They rate her highly.”
They’re not the only ones.
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