England World Cup winner Lauren Winfield-Hill has backed Nat Sciver-Bunt as "the obvious candidate" to take over from Heather Knight as England captain.
Knight was sacked as captain after almost nine years in the role following her side's 16-0 drubbing in Australia, with her departure announced 24 hours after head coach Jon Lewis was also axed. No official announcements have yet been made as to who will take over the captaincy, but current vice captain Sciver-Brunt is regarded as the favourite for the job.
Speaking on the Wisden Women's Cricket Weekly podcast, Winfield-Hill said: "The obvious candidate, the front-running candidate is Nat [Sciver-Brunt] because she plays all three formats of the game. She's, in my opinion, the best player in the world. We're yet to know if she's the best captain in the world, she's done it for Trent Rockets and done it at times when Heather has not played but we're yet to know her in her captaincy capacity.
"It might be something that the responsibility kicks her on further. You'd hate for it to be a burden because she is the best player in the world. She's also in some beautiful form now as well coming off the WPL. You don't want to feel like you're pegged down. The other thing to consider is, a lot of it now is a lot of media commitments, you've got to talk to a lot of people. You've got to interview when you've played well, you've got to interview when you've played poorly. And those are things that take from your cup. It's who can handle that as well... There's a lot more to it now, especially with where the women's game is at."
Following the announcement that Knight would be stepping down from the captaincy, England announced two captains for their England A tour of Australia, in which England won the first T20I of the series in Sydney. Hollie Armitage will captain the 50-over side while highly rated youngster Grace Scrivens – who has yet to make her England debut – is leading in the T20s.
"I feel a bit disappointed sometimes," said Winfield-Hill. "Because we have this high-performance environment, we can't blame domestic cricket and we've got a really good A programme etc. And we're in this position where it feels like people are scratching their heads a little bit. If Nat is the captain then who are your vices, who are your second-in-commands? You want them to complement Nat not be the same as what she is. They want to be her blind spot so you've got this nice mix of personalities.
"It feels like that list isn't vast at the minute, it feels like we've failed a bit in that space. I hate banging on about the Aussies but really there's about four or five in that team who could take the captaincy and it would be pretty seamless because they've either had exposure in franchise cricket, or domestic cricket or Big Bash or A programmes or whatever. Whereas all of a sudden it feels like, 'let's give Scriv [Grace Scrivens] and Hollie [Armitage] a go'. Where was this before?
"Scriv has got huge potential, she's a great competitor. People like her, she's very competitive but you've got to walk before you run. This is a massive job, make no two ways about it, it is a massive job. Giving it to someone who's played less than 30 games in my opinion would be way too far-fetched. We're not playing B-Grade cricket here this is international cricket. Unless you're an absolute stand-out candidate, have shredded it up, have won trophies, are a proven winner then that is way too far-fetched."
England's next assignment is a double white-ball series against West Indies in May, before hosting India later in the summer as they build-up to the World Cup later in the year.
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