Winning the World Cup and the Ashes on Sophie Ecclestone’s mind. The 25-year-old left-arm spinner from England, Sophie Ecclestone is ruling the bowling charts in both the white-ball formats as she sits at the top of ICC ODIs (802 points) as well as the T20I (770 points) bowling rankings.
She completed eight years in International cricket on 3rd July 2024, having made her International debut on 3rd July 2016 in a T20I against Pakistan.
She has picked up 118 wickets in 80 innings at a strike rate of 15.1 an average of 14.70 and an economy of 5.81 in the T20I format. Her best performance with the ball in the format came on 23rd June 2018 against New Zealand when she returned with match figures (4-1-18-4) in her spell. She is the leading wicket-taker for England in the T20I format. She has picked up 108 wickets at a strike rate of 32.6 an average of 19.94 and an economy of 3.66 in 65 innings. Her best performance with the ball in the format came on 31st March 2022 against South Africa when she returned with match-figures (8-0-36-6) in her spell in the format.
In the red-ball format, she has picked up 32 wickets in 13 innings at a strike rate of 64.5 an average of 31.25 and an economy of 2.90 with the ball. Her best performance with the ball in the red-ball format came on 22nd June 2023 against Australia when she returned with match-figures (77.1-16-192-10) with the ball. “I love the competition. Ashes series, World Cup finals, super overs in a World Cup, that’s what I live for, that’s what I train for and that’s what we all train for. Winning trophies, it’s obviously up there too, so I’ll always keep interested. I wear my heart on my sleeve and you’ll see that.” Sophie Ecclestone speaks about being competitive and wearing her heart on her sleeves.
The England women’s team led by skipper Heather Knight are currently involved in the white-ball series that includes a three-match ODI series followed by a five-match T20I series. She ended the ODI series as the leading wicket-taker of the series with seven wickets to her name at a strike rate of 13.71, an average of 7.57 and an economy of 3.31 in a couple of innings in the series. The caravan will now move on to the five-match T20I series from 6th July 2024.
“It’s just to win a World Cup and an Ashes. That World Cup at Lord’s, that was the last World Cup [England] won and we’ve not won an Ashes since because I’ve been a part of them all, so it’d be really nice to do that in the space of six months, win the World Cup in Bangladesh, win the Ashes. It would be an amazing few months for us.” Sophie Ecclestone speaks about the things to achieve in her bucket list.
The upcoming edition of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup will be hosted by Bangladesh. The tournament will commence on 3rd October 2024 and will conclude on 20th October 2024.
(Quotes sourced from Espncricinfo).