Semi-final the minimum for England – Edwards

Reaching the semi-final is the minimum expectation for England at the Women’s World Cup, says coach Charlotte Edwards.

England reached the final of the previous edition in 2022 and were beaten by Australia, but were knocked out at the semi-final and then the group stage at the most recent T20 World Cups.

Captain Nat Sciver-Brunt’s side come into the tournament as underdogs after a 16-0 Ashes drubbing at the beginning of the year, and a mixed summer which saw them thrash a poor West Indies side before weaknesses were exposed against India in T20 and one-day international series defeats.

They have beaten favourites India and Australia in their two warm-up games, which Edwards hopes will boost their confidence and hopes of reaching the knockouts.

When asked what would be the bare minimum for England, Edwards said: “We want to be at the semi-final knockout phases, and then we know anything can happen from there.”

The World Cup begins on Tuesday with the opening match between co-hosts India and Sri Lanka, while England begin their campaign against South Africa on Friday.

All eight competing teams play each other once before the semi-finals, with England facing India and Australia in Indore on 19 and 22 October respectively.

“To beat Australia is always special, whether it’s a warm-up game or not,” said Edwards, who led England to World Cup glory in 2009.

“But it’s more pleasing with how we went about it as we were under quite a bit of pressure throughout the game.

“It’s going to give us a lot of belief going into this tournament.”

Much of the criticism that England faced following the T20 World Cup and the Ashes centred on their inability to perform under pressure, since they have an excellent record against lower-ranked teams in bilateral series but they have not won a global tournament since 2017 or an Ashes series since 2014.

Edwards, who took over from Jon Lewis in April, admits England are not favourites but says they are becoming more familiar and aware of their gameplan for 50-over cricket.

“I’ve definitely come here to win the tournament, of course, but Australia are always going to go in as favourites, India are in their backyard,” said Edwards.

“So we know where we sit, but we also know that we can beat any team on our day and I think we’ve shown that over the last week, but we’ve got to do it consistently. We’ve got to do it under pressure in big events.

“I think around our batting, we’ve got a blueprint that we want people to get big scores, big partnerships, set up the game for the last 20 overs and the players are starting to understand batting time.”

Edwards also spoke of a desire to deliver more success after England’s triumph at the Rugby World Cup, saying that the team got together to watch the Red Roses beat Canada at Twickenham.

“We were truly inspired by those group of girls. I think they’ve been wonderful and hopefully we can build on that coming into our World Cup now,” added Edwards.

“I don’t think it adds pressure. I just think it just inspires us to want to go replicate what they’ve done, and it’s great to see England and female sport in such a great place.”