{"id":673995,"date":"2026-07-04T20:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-04T20:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/673995\/"},"modified":"2026-07-04T20:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-04T20:46:09","slug":"t20-world-cup-final-england-brace-for-their-biggest-game-in-a-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/673995\/","title":{"rendered":"T20 World Cup final: England brace for their biggest game in a decade"},"content":{"rendered":"

Edwards posed the question \u2013 at the start of the year she challenged England’s youngsters to push for places<\/a> \u2013 but did not panic.<\/p>\n

Twelve of this year’s squad played in 2024. The same cricketers are playing better now.<\/p>\n

But for all of England’s promise, Australia will arrive on Sunday as favourites.<\/p>\n

The 16-0 Ashes win was only 18 months ago and while England have won all of the World Cups held in this country, more relevant is Australia’s dominance in the biggest matches. <\/p>\n

England have not beaten Australia in any of their five World Cup knockout meetings since the World T20 semi-final in 2009, when their spinner Tilly Corteen-Coleman was one year old.<\/p>\n

Edwards was captain that day, as she was for England’s last Ashes win in 2014.<\/p>\n

And the Australians, who have played 10 World Cup finals since 2000 and lost only one, are not relying purely on the weight of history to carry them to a seventh T20 World Cup.<\/p>\n

The great Ellyse Perry, who appears to be winning her race to be fit, said Edwards would “not allow” England to be beaten before taking the field.<\/p>\n

“We actually haven’t mentioned the Ashes too much,” captain Sophie Molineux said.<\/p>\n

“We’ve probably looked at a little bit of footage used from the Ashes, but different conditions – and they were playing a different style of cricket.”<\/p>\n

Sciver-Brunt was similarly dismissive, though her words pointed to England’s improved mood.<\/p>\n

“The personnel we have now is quite different \u2013 maybe not in who they are, but where we are as a side and what we’ve worked on,” Sciver-Brunt said.<\/p>\n

“The feeling around the group is very different from that Ashes trip. I’m sure a lot of people have tried to forget how we felt.<\/p>\n

“But we knew we needed to move forward and learn from that trip. A lot of hard work needed to be done and where we’ve got to now.”<\/p>\n

It means talk of the Ashes can wait, until the urn is next up for grabs on these shores in 2027.<\/p>\n

Sunday, with Lord’s sold out again, will be an epic occasion in its own right.<\/p>\n

That Sunday in 2017 was all about showing the growth of the women’s game in front of the world, but we are beyond that now.<\/p>\n

Fifa’s U-turn on Saturday morning means an enticing contest will get the spotlight it deserves rather than being pitched against the football.<\/p>\n

For England it could kick-start the Edwards era and give her a moment at cricket’s home she deserves more than anyone else.<\/p>\n

Perhaps just as important, after the Ashes and everything that followed, win or lose, England are team to believe in again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Edwards posed the question \u2013 at the start of the year she challenged England’s youngsters to push for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-673995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}