With six months to go until England set out on another T20 World Cup campaign, the biggest question they have over their batting order concerns the make-up of their opening partnership.

Since 2017, Danni Wyatt has been a near-constant presence at the top of England’s T20I order. She’s opened the batting in 80 of England’s 85 T20Is since then, and scored over 2000 runs. Only Nat Sciver-Brunt has scored more runs for England in the format since the beginning of last year than Wyatt has, and no player has a higher strike rate in that time. While she will miss the first three matches of the series in New Zealand after flying over from the WPL, she’s locked in to open the innings in the T20 World Cup later in the year.

Her absence gives England an opportunity to find clarity over who will be Wyatt’s opening partner going forward. Those three matches will be key in deciding between two players whose T20 forms have dovetailed over the past few years, and who can look to the other as examples to follow.

Sophia Dunkley has solidly occupied the spot since the beginning of 2022, when she replaced Tammy Beaumont. Now, with Beaumont back in the picture after an incredible all-format 2023 summer, the roles could change hands once again. England will only have eight T20I matches following the New Zealand series before they head out to the T20 World Cup. Whoever comes out of New Zealand holding that second spot will be in prime position to consolidate their place going into the competition.

Dunkley is the incumbent, and it’s worth looking at why she was promoted up the order in the first place. In the 2020 T20 World Cup, Amy Jones and Wyatt made up England’s opening partnership, with Tammy Beaumont replacing Jones at the top for one innings. Between them, they scored 72 runs in England’s four group matches in the competition, at a collective strike rate of less than 100. It was identified as a critical area to change after the competition, with Wyatt and Beaumont identified as England’s openers following the pandemic break.

In terms of runs, Beaumont enjoyed relative success between 2020 and 2022 as an opener. She averaged 32.14 in the role during that period following the T20 World Cup, and passed fifty four times in 15 innings, including a 97 against New Zealand. At the same time, Dunkley was carving out a role for herself as a finisher. By mid-2022, Dunkley had played a number of influential cameos between Nos. 4-7.

She also adopted a position up the order for Southern Brave during the Hundred. In the inaugural season of the competition in 2021, she finished third on the run-scorer charts batting mostly at three and striking at 141.86. It was a change which had England in mind. With established names making up the middle order and the finisher role a much more unstable position to occupy, showing what she could do up the order gave England food for thought on how they were best using her. It’s worth pointing out that Beaumont’s strike rate in that season of the Hundred was 102.96.

With the Commonwealth Games looming, strike rates and aggression were clearly on the agenda in early 2022. After impressing following a move up to No.3 against South Africa in the ODI format, Dunkley replaced Beaumont in the squad for the corresponding T20I series and the Commonwealth Games – a squad marked by several younger players selected.

At the time, then-England coach Lisa Keightley clarified that the reason for the switch was primarily finding a more aggressive approach to the start of the innings. “We just felt like we wanted to be more aggressive in that powerplay in T20s,” she said. “We’ve gone down that line of the ultra-aggressive players that can go in there and really take the game on the front end, when there’s only two fielders outside the circle.”

During the following series against South Africa, Commonwealth Games and final assignment of the summer against India, Dunkley scored two 50s and a 49 at the top at a strike rate of 122.53. Since then, however, her progress hasn’t been so straightforward.

After England’s dominating series win over West Indies in December of 2022, the T20 World Cup marked the official start of the Jon Lewis era, with his effect clear to see. England came into the competition with the intent to score quickly and play with freedom, clearly outlined by Lewis to the media. In the two innings in which she passed 20 in that series, Dunkley’s strike rates were impressive, but three failures out of five were part of a campaign which ended in a semi-final loss to South Africa.

In the Ashes T20 series and England’s latest T20I series in India, the pressure on Dunkley has started to mount. Three single-digit scores across six innings, one half century against Australia – only once has she struck at more than 120 in a T20I innings in that time. Brought in to be an enforcer at the top of the order, that promise isn’t matching up with the role she’s currently providing for England.

Since she became a mainstay across all formats for England, Dunkley’s seemed on the verge of delivering on her huge potential. But it’s yet to fully click. As the format continues to evolve and the player-pool expands, she can’t afford to stand still. However, should she need an example to follow, her current competitor has given her a blueprint, coming good in 2016 at the age Dunkley is now. It was the first of several significant steps forward Beaumont would take on the path to becoming one of the best batters in the world. Her recall for New Zealand represents the culmination of her latest advancement.

Since losing her place to Dunkley in 2022, Beaumont has transformed the way she approaches T20 cricket. So much so that Jon Lewis’ decision to wait until now to recall her has come under some criticism. She scored 290 runs in the 2023 Hundred, second only to Wyatt in the run-scoring charts, and 191 runs across nine innings in last year’s Charlotte Edwards Cup. It’s not only the weight of runs she’s scored, however, it’s the speed at which she’s scored them.

🚨 ENGLAND WOMEN ANNOUNCE SQUADS FOR NEW ZEALAND TOUR 🚨

T20I squad:
✅ Tammy Beaumont
✅ Hollie Armitage
✅ Linsey Smith

*WPL players have been cleared to play from the fourth T20I onwards* pic.twitter.com/WLkh2RpqqP

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) February 2, 2024

Out of all those who scored more than 250 runs in the 2023 Hundred, none had a strike rate close to Beaumont’s (153.43). In an interview with The Telegraph ahead of the first match against New Zealand, she acknowledged that adapting to the increased scoring rates and power hitting in the women’s T20 format was crucial in her recall.

“I’ve had to reinvent myself as a more aggressive T20 opener,” she said. “The game’s changed an awful lot… the power-hitting side and the fielding are two massive points that would be unrecognisable.”

When Beaumont was dropped, Dunkley was representative of a new generation of fearless, fearsome hitters. Now Beaumont has the chance to show she belongs in the new age.

The culmination of all of this, is that the first three T20Is in New Zealand represent as close as you can get to a straight shootout, with whoever performs best given the first shot at partnering Wyatt going forward. The spotlight will be on whether Beaumont can translate her fast-scoring in The Hundred to the international stage. For Dunkley, a score or two will go a long way to dismissing memories of a frustrating two years.

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