Best mates since their uni days, Tammy Beaumont and Lauren Winfield, dubbed ’Twinfield’ by their team-mates, will be leading the charge for England at this summer’s World Cup, beginning on June 24. Jo Harman spoke to the opening pair about student life, learning curves and their long-standing partnership.
After a lacklustre 2016 World T20 campaign, England needed a spark. The women’s game in general was making rapid progress in this country with professionalisation, a new T20 league and greater media coverage, but the national team was in danger of going stale.
Mark Robinson, appointed head coach in November 2015, had been damning in his assessment of his side after the World T20 semi-final defeat to Australia, criticising their fitness, attitude and dynamism. “We’re looking for players who can stand up and be counted and play under the pressure and have the aerobic fitness to do the job necessarily,” he said. “That will be a necessity for any women’s team going forward.”
As a team you seemed to play with more aggression and freedom last summer. Is that Mark Robinson’s influence?
TB: Robbo has been quite clear since coming in. He’s said, ‘This is how I will judge you, this is what I want from you’. What he said to me was: ‘I see you as a T20 opener, I want you to go out there and hit the ball hard. If you hit the first ball for four and then get caught at mid-off the next ball, that’s OK. But if you dot-up five balls and then get out trying to nudge it to square-leg to get a single, then I’ll tell you off’. I knew I had to go out and strike it hard, and that was that. If it came off, it came off. And if it didn’t, then I could at least be true to that. That gives you freedom.
Lauren, were you given a specific role?
LW: I don’t necessarily think that Robbo defines a role, I think he just lets us play our way. For a lot of us we play better when we have that intent and we really strike the ball. It’s OK to say play your way, but if you’re in and out [of the team] all the time then you’re going, ‘If I don’t make a big one today, I’m going to be back doing drinks again’. Whereas with Robbo it’s very much about how you’re going about your business, not necessarily a statistic. He’d rather we got 20 playing well, playing our way, making good decisions, picking up good lengths. He’ll look at the more intricate details rather than just looking at a scorebook and going, ‘You only got 20 today’.
