Ryana MacDonald-Gay in the 2025 Ashes Test at the MCG

Amid the mire of a devastating Ashes defeat, a quiet revolution in how England select their pace attack was happening back home in Loughborough.

When Ryana MacDonald-Gay was parachuted in to replace an injured Kate Cross in South Africa, she faced an enormous challenge. Her international debut in the one-off Test match in Bloemfontein would be the first multi-day match of her career. With Lauren Filer and Lauren Bell bagging the new ball, she also had to master the unfamiliar skill of running in again and again with an old, red ball against the likes of Laura Wolvaardt and Marizanne Kapp.

“The most overs you ever bowl in a day is 10, so to bowl 20 was, I don’t even know, it was crazy,” MacDonald-Gay tells Wisden.com. Despite that challenge, the 21-year-old excelled in England’s first Test win in a decade, keeping the threat level up well into her second and third spells and pegging back Kapp’s off stump with a beauty with a ball that was 74 overs old. In her following over on day two, she got Nadine de Klerk, once again hammering that top-of-off stump line.

What MacDonald-Gay produced on the pitch in South Africa wasn’t an accidental discovery. Before being called up as cover for Cross, she had been working with Chris Liddle as one of six bowlers on the newly formed England Pace Bowling Performance programme. Despite only being able to train with the programme for three weeks before England came calling, MacDonald-Gay credits it with being physically ready for the South Africa challenge.

“It was really beneficial,” says MacDonald-Gay. “I’ve been working on run-ups and making sure running mechanisms work and that everything is as efficient as it could be. In a Test, when you have to bowl 20 overs in a day, you have to be as efficient as possible to make sure you can sustain bowling at that level with that accuracy for a really long period of time. By having a more efficient bowling action, run up, everything in general, it did allow me to perform better for longer in South Africa.”

Having finished the winter with another impressive outing in England’s doomed Ashes Test match at the MCG, MacDonald-Gay was straight back to Loughborough shortly after returning home, to continue her work with the programme. It’s work she hopes will lay the foundations for another step up.

“I don’t feel like that [Test matches] is all I can give,” she says. “I want to keep competing towards the 50-over squad, as well as T20s. I know what I need to do to get towards that squad and challenge the players in it. I always want to make them feel uncomfortable and that their spot isn’t safe. That’s definitely given me a focus for this summer.”

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While an Ashes whitewash exposed the gaps between England and Australia, one area in which Heather Knight's side were able to compete most closely was in fast-bowling. The likes of Bell and Filer have established themselves as definitive successors to Anya Shrubsole and Katherine Sciver-Brunt over the last few years, and England have an enviable variety of pace and movement in their attack. However, that's arguably come about more by chance than by intentional development.

Lauren Filer came into the Test side for the 2023 Ashes after impressing during a net session in front of Jon Lewis, having largely not been on the international radar previously. The likes of Issy Wong and Mahika Gaur have spent most of the last two years on the sidelines after making waves in their initial outings.

When Liddle started working with bowlers in the England A side in November 2023, he found a gap in support for the players a rung below the first team.

“I got a feel for the bowlers below making their debut in the main team and around the regions, and I thought it was quite difficult to get hands-on and work with them consistently,” says Liddle. “So I spoke to Finchy [Jonathan Finch - director of England Women’s cricket] and put forward the idea, similar to what they do in the men’s set-up, of getting a group of bowlers of a variety in terms of what they deliver at different stages of their career, and working with them throughout the winter.”

The six bowlers Liddle and his team pinpointed as the programme’s first intake covered a range of speeds and attributes. In addition to MacDonald-Gay, Grace Potts, a tall, right-arm seamer, was also called up to South Africa following work with the programme, while the express pacers in their ranks include Wong and up-and-coming Surrey fast-bowler Emma Jones. Having not played for England since 2018, Katie George also won a place on the programme, with former England U19 star Alexa Stonehouse rounding out the first crop.

It’s an intense schedule. Working to tailored individual bowling plans, each player has spent every Monday and Tuesday since November in Loughborough, working one-on-one with coaching and strength and conditioning staff, before heading back to train with their counties for the rest of the week. There, they can expect visits from Liddle and other coaches to check in on their progress, which also allows time for the coaching staff to view other bowlers on the county circuit.

“They [the counties] have got an eye on and know what the players are working on, but we take a lead on the development, whether that's technical or skill," says Liddle. "We have more of a say on what their winter looks like and how they progress. I think it’s a massive achievement, and everyone seems happy with the work they’ve been able to do with the players. It’s been a real success I think.

“Macca and Pottsy both got called up to the Test side, and if the programme wasn’t in place they wouldn’t have been in a position, in terms of their development and winter progress, to make that step up, because they wouldn’t have had the overs behind them to be in a good enough place to get a call-up and play Test cricket.”

After a winter training indoors, all six bowlers will fly out to Abu Dhabi this week with Liddle for a training camp. They will be joined by several members of the England A side, with the aim of the camp to transfer their improvements over the last few months to match situations.

“The girls are stronger, the girls are fitter, they’re moving faster,” says Liddle. “A lot of them were operating at around 20, 30, 40 per cent before in terms of what they deliver with the ball. Now, we’ve got them up to the late 60s and 70 per cent.”

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Readying England’s up-and-coming fast bowlers for the step up to international cricket has been the predominant success of the programme in its early stages, but working with the likes of Wong and George will be another test.

Wong, who still holds an ECB development contract, has only featured in a handful of games for England over the last two years following very public struggles with her run-up. After playing in the 2023 WPL, she didn’t feature for England in that year’s Ashes, and when she was recalled against Sri Lanka later in the summer, she bowled a two over spell which included three no balls.

Providing a net for young players with huge potential but who have fallen out of international cricket is an area England’s domestic and pathway system has been lacking. Often, the previous regional system struggled to keep up with the needs of players on the fringes of the international set-up. Having not been selected on merit for Central Sparks last year, Wong - who was still centrally contracted at the time - had to ask the ECB to approve a loan to Western Storm in order to get game time.

“Issy is more skill development,” says Liddle. “We felt a lot of her difficulty was starting the game. She’s got incredible skill and an incredible range of deliveries she can bowl. It’s about making her aware and making her feel what good is for certain deliveries and how best to execute them. We spent a lot of time bowling with the red ball to take away the thought process of changing deliveries and yorkers and trying to hammer home the consistency.

“She’s seeing growth in that discipline of working on the skill in training and execution, and her accuracy has gone through the roof. It’s been really good for Issy to have that detail of skill in one thing, rather than loads of things, that’s really helped kick her game on. It’s exciting to see what she can do with her game this year, and I’m hoping the trips in the winter will give her that next phase of development and transition from net practice to match scenarios and playing in games and making sure those skill changes can still hold up.”

While Wong has stayed on England’s periphery, George completely fell off their radar when multiple back injuries stalled her career after making her international debut as a teenager. She hasn’t played international cricket in seven years, having lost her central contracts in 2022, but has managed to maintain her fitness over the last three domestic seasons.

A vital part of the programme is providing players with a significant block of time to train with a single coach. It’s an opportunity that those who come to international cricket at a young age, after rapidly ascending through junior and then professional teams, often don’t get. Particularly for still physically developing fast bowlers, building a relationship with a specialist coach is vital in ensuring fitness and development.

“It is challenging, being a younger player in a different environment,” says MacDonald-Gay. “You’re always going to have that challenge, though, because building a relationship takes time.

“I’m a massive advocate for doing a lot more one-on-one stuff, even if it’s fielding. It’s a tailored programme [in Loughborough] to your needs. You get about an hour to work individually with coaches who specialise in their area. You get an hour of bowling, an hour of batting, an hour of fielding, an hour of gym, it’s a really good set-up. You get a lot of volume and a lot of individual feedback within the system.

“He [Liddle] is mainly my coach right now, and the one I touch bases with often. I see him two or three times a week currently. We spent a lot of time together on tour so that friendship and partnership grew. It’s a lot easier for us to communicate now than it was at the start. We’ve spent more time together, trusting each other, having that relationship really helps, especially when you work on your skills because it’s easier to come across in how you’re saying things. We have that understanding even if I don’t have the words to describe how I feel, he knows what I mean.”

While players have been able to focus entirely on their work with Liddle and his team over the winter, that focused development will be put on pause when the domestic season starts up again in a few weeks. In addition to a county summer that will be busier than ever before, there’s an England A tour to Australia, and two senior international series before a World Cup around the corner in September.

As questions persist about the depth of England’s talent pool, the programme up in Loughborough has quietly established the first step to addressing one particular shortcoming.

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