The England women’s team tour of the Caribbean got underway on the 4th of December at the Sir Vivian Richards Cricket Ground, Antigua with the 1st of a 3-match One-Day International (ODI) series, and England early in the series have been hit hard with an injury to their maturing all-rounder.
Teen all-rounder, Alice Capsey is understood to have sustained a broken collarbone after awkwardly landing in completing her diving attempt at fine leg to prevent a top-edged hook from reaching the boundary during the 2nd innings of the opening ODI match.
Though Alice Capsey then continued to remain on the ground for several minutes, she later received treatment and eventually was taken to the hospital for a further examination. An X-ray subsequently cleared the degree of the damage, and she now is learned to soon begin a period of rehabilitation.
JUST IN:
Alice Capsey is ruled out of the remainder of the West Indies tour after injuring her left collar bone #CricketTwitter #WIvENG pic.twitter.com/MqiSFrmqN7
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) December 5, 2022
A statement from the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) on the same read, “Alice Capsey sustained an injury on the field during the first ODI against West Indies Women. Upon further examination, she has broken her left collarbone and will be unavailable for the remainder of the tour. Capsey will now return home to the UK.”
Shortly after, the 18-year-old took to her Instagram and cleared her intentions by mentioning, “be back stronger than ever in no time”.
Alice Capsey quickly rose through the ranks in domestic cricket and this summer, as a 17-year-old marked her debut across white-ball formats and announced her arrival on the international stage by becoming the youngest England player to make a Twenty20 International (T20I) fifty and did so on the biggest of stages, during the Commonwealth Games league-stage fixtures.
In the lead-up to the series, Alice Capsey played cricket in Australia for the Melbourne Stars in the Women’s Big Bash League (W-BBL). In 12 innings for the club, she scored 259 runs at an average of 25.90, a strike rate of 128.85, and registered the highest score of 80* and also had 9 wickets to her name, including the best figures of 3/36 off 14 innings at an economy rate of 6.98.
Alice Capsey in the format internationally has scored 234 runs in 9 innings at an average of 33.42, a strike rate of 127.86, and has got the highest score of 50. With the ball, off 6 innings, she’s only got a wicket to her name that she’d picked on debut and in doing so had provided England with a crucial breakthrough.
The ECB awarded Alice Capsey’s promising start to her international career by handing the 18-year-old her first central contract in November, but her first-ever World Cup campaign, the upcoming T20 World Cup that’s scheduled to be played early next year in South Africa remains under doubt as there’s clarity yet on her return from the ECB.