Beaumont and Winfield secure clean

CHELMSFORD: A fifth won toss in six and Heather Knight had no qualms batting first: England had won all 11 previous matches at Chelmsford and, with that in mind, Tammy Beaumont and Lauren Winfield ensured a 12th was sewn up early with an opening stand of 108.’Across the six matches, the first England wicket has been worth 801 – more than half of their team’s runs. When Pakistan do return to their own beds, a few of their bowlers might want to check under them to ensure Beaumont and Winfield are nowhere to be seen. Both their half-centuries were typical of their play over the last month: Winfield willing and on the front foot, Beaumont wristy and devastating.’The familiarity spread right through’to the game’s conclusion. Pakistan were run ragged in the field and, facing a total they had no intention of chasing -‘Danni Wyatt pilfered 11 from the first four balls of the final over to help England set 170 -‘it was just a matter or whether they would be bowled out in the allotted time. In the end, they finished seven wickets down and 57 short.”England rang changes with the ball, the most noticeable being left-armer Tash Farrant coming in for Katherine Brunt. Having made her debut at the age of 17, Farrant spent two years on the sidelines from January 2014 to February 2016, when Mark Robinson gave her a run out in England’s final T20I before the World T20.’Hers is an example he was keen to address: a player picked young yet too young to cope with being dropped and overlooked for a prolonged’period. Now 20, she looked’at ease, cycling through her variations and even nabbing the wicket of opener Nahida Khan with a slower ball that was’flat-batted back to her. There were first international wickets, too, for Alex Hartley.”Talking about how easy you find things is one of cricket’s great taboos, but even Heather Knight, a measured individual who seems to cringe at her own success, might wonder what all the fuss of captaining your country is about.”From the early part of Robinson’s tenure as head coach, it was evident that both he and Knight were on the same page. In one of their first coach-player interactions, Knight said she wanted to move away from feeling like’the onus is on her to bat for as long as possible. She wanted freedom.’As captain, she has been able to afford that to the rest of her team. All this while questions were being’asked of whether life after Charlotte Edwards would really be so rosy.’Those answers will not be able to be given just yet, but Knight was understandably punchy in the press conference.””There was a lot of noise around the squad before the series and the girls have responded. The cricket we have played has been really entertaining to watch. Everyone is feeding off the success of each other and it’s been a really nice place to be.”‘That last point is key. Perhaps one of the most noticeable elements of this England side is how much more open they seem. And while players young and experienced have commented on how Robinson has created a relaxed atmosphere, it has been particularly clear’to former players no longer in the system.”Caroline Atkins, who represented England between 2001 and 2011, was taken aback at how at ease the players were when she was around the team at Taunton as they prepared for the third ODI. It was not an atmosphere she was used to. Isa Guha and Ebony-Jewel Rainford-Brent have also presented caps to debutants during this tour, something that has rarely happened in English women’s cricket. Rainford-Brent, who’ presented Hartley with her T20 cap before this match, was even invited into the team huddle -‘a ringed haven usually reserved for squad members.”’There are of course elements that still need work. On a personnel level, Kate Cross’ return to international cricket, after an impressive pre-season tour of Sri Lanka with the England Academy, was disappointing, as she took’1 for 56 from the 11 overs she bowled across the first two ODIs. Cross will spend the next few weeks up to the’inaugural Women’s Super League fine-tuning some technical aspects of her game, such as her front arm, before leading the Lancashire Tunder in what is hoped to be a testing’fortnight of high-level’cricket. She will hope her name will be added to the long list of seamers Robinson has healed.”Long term, it will be interesting to see whether the confidence gained from these six matches can carry through into something more sustainable. This is not a team that likes to blow their own trumpet. But after six matches of runs, wickets and outright dominance, and given the manner in which they are looking to play their cricket, they might have to get used to it.