Former international Alex Hartley has criticized the fitness of some of England's players involved in the country's disappointing Women's T20 World Cup campaign, saying “there are women in that side who are letting the team down”.
England crashed out of the World Cup with a six-wicket loss to the West Indies in Dubai on Tuesday. “It's really disappointing,” Hartley said on the BBC's Test Match Special. “A lot of questions are asked about fitness, and some of them are correct. England need to be fit.
“Australia has 15 or 16 athletes, real athletes. They have the world's best leg-spinner in Amanda-Jade Wellington, who was left out of the squad because she was not fit enough. You look at our team – I'm not going to mention names but if you see them, you'll know. There are also women on that side who beat the team when it comes to fitness.
Richard Gould, the ECB's chief executive, said player fitness in the women's game was something “we want to improve”. “I think athleticism is very important in cricket,” said Gould, who was in Sharjah for England's World Cup match against Scotland and Multan for the men's Test. “I think the 1% are starting to become more and more important now.
“We want to give all our players the support we can. We have been underinvested in women's sport for too long. We had 18 professional players. Next year we will have 200 professional women players. That's a lot of progress in a short period of time and there will always be things we want to improve.
England's disappointing performance in the knockout game against the West Indies evoked memories of other recent defeats in high-stakes tournaments: they lost the final in the last 50-over World Cup in 2022, the semi-finals of the 2016 and 2023 T20 World Cups and the final in 2018. In 2020, they were eliminated at the semi-final stage after rain left them without a ball being bowled. India advanced to the finals based on their group-stage result.
“We've lost crunch games for a long time,” said Hartley, who was part of the side that won the 2017 World Cup. “When England come under pressure, especially when Sophie Ecclestone slows things down and doesn't take wickets, everyone panics. She can't do it again and again. There will be questions around captaincy, management, fitness, what is going on in this England team.
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“Things have to change. If you haven't won a World Cup in a long time, things have to change. I don't know where it comes from. I think so [England women’s coach] John Lewis is the right man for the job. She has changed women's cricket, making women realize that they can have a better work-life balance. I don't know if they've gone too far the other way.
