Tammy Beaumont hasn’t had the easiest of gigs over the past week. Not only has she spent that time commentating for TV on a format she hasn’t played internationally in over a year-and-a-half, but on a T20I series England lost 2-1 to a Sri Lanka side ranked six places below them.
Back in the fold for the ODI series as one of the form batters in the country this summer, she is in prime position to turn things around for the hosts and is backing her side – and herself – to do so.
“It’s great to be back,” Beaumont told reporters ahead of Saturday’s first ODI in Durham. “You always feel like you’re missing out a little bit on something when you’re not involved. Obviously I watched the T20 series, I was actually broadcasting during it, and I’m not going to lie, it was tough to broadcast on at times.
“Being a current player, you’re desperate to just try and grow the game and show how good the girls are and get to talk about their characters and build up that kind of thing. So having to broadcast about it was difficult at times.
“Full credit to Sri Lanka, they came out and played really well in the second and third T20 and thoroughly deserved the series win. They stuck to their strengths, which is obviously their spin-bowling department and exposed something that we know as an England team we need to work on… I’m fully backing the girls and myself included to bounce back really well in this ODI series.”
A Test double-century followed by knocks of 47 and 60 in the ODI section of the drawn Ashes series, 118 from 61 balls – the highest score recorded in the Hundred – as well as a half-century for Welsh Fire and an average of 48.20 in the ongoing Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy mean the positives far outweigh the negatives for opener Beaumont, whom England will be relying on after being bowled out for 104 and 116 as Sri Lanka romped to eight- and seven-wicket victories respectively in the last two T20 games.
Sri Lanka’s spinners have posed particular problems for the England batters, prompting head coach Jon Lewis to confirm that he would take a group to a training camp in Mumbai to prepare for the year-end tour of India, next year’s T20 World Cup in Bangladesh and the 2025 ODI World Cup in India.
And while her experience and professionalism – exemplified by successfully juggling playing and broadcasting careers this year – will go a long way to helping Beaumont pick up where she left off, the task ahead is slightly more nuanced than that.
“I always find it difficult being in and out, it’s not easy,” Beaumont said. “The way Jon Lewis has set up the team and how hard he works with the communication and how we function as a group, even just in 10 days you feel like you’re missing out on some evolution of this group. So coming back in, you’re desperate to get up to speed quickly.
“Yes, I went back to domestic cricket with the Blaze and had a good game, well, had good fun at Edgbaston in our game there. International cricket’s a whole different ball game. Sometimes it’s quite difficult, but luckily I’ve felt pretty good most of the summer in terms of how I’ve been playing so hopefully it’s not too different and it’s just a case of that mental sharpness that I really need to just switch on to international cricket.”
Beaumont’s last match was in victory for the table-topping Blaze over second-placed Central Sparks in the RHFT on Tuesday. She was run out for 24 while team-mate Nat Sciver-Brunt scored an unbeaten 66 ahead of bolstering England for the ODIs against Sri Lanka, having been rested for the T20I leg.
Chamari Attapaththu’s side, however, will be full of confidence after becoming the first team besides Australia to defeat England in a bilateral T20I series since New Zealand did it in 2010. It was a triumph Rumesh Ratnayake, Sri Lanka’s head coach, described as “really huge” for the nation.
“If I cover up my England badge and if you think for a moment about being a neutral women’s cricket supporter, the fact Sri Lanka are capable of beating England in a T20 series, the fact Pakistan have beaten South Africa, is possibly the best thing for the global women’s game,” Beaumont said.
“As much as it hurts to have lost to them and we’ll be reeling, we’ll be desperate to put it right, for the global women’s game, it’s a must. There’s no point in 10 years’ time only England, India and Australia kind of fighting it out at the top three and all the rest of the cricket not being worth it. So yeah, for a moment, if I take my England hat off, it’s absolutely the best thing for the women’s game.”
