‘It was so special’published at 11:45 British Summer Time
Stand-in England captain Kate Cross, speaking on the No Balls podcast: “Obviously I know how to bowl in ODI cricket. Not that I wasn’t worried about it, but I knew that I wanted my role to remain the same regardless of captaincy. But I tell you where the captaincy thing really came in – was when I went out to bat and I was like ‘I have to take responsibility here, and I have to play well to not lose this game of cricket’.
“It was so fun, I love batting with Bess, loved it. I feel like I’m in a good place with my cricket. Happy minds make happy cricketers. I’m tired, it’s the end of the season, obviously with the captaincy there’s more responsibility, more to think about.
“[Going into bat in the first ODI] I had to really switch on here. If I got a first baller I’d look like a really bad captain, or not necessarily a bad captain but I’m always banging on about batting higher up the order. But it’s been so much fun, and you know what I’ve loved the most? The response I’ve had from the team. Your voice is heard more when you’re captain, then when you have a day like I did on Saturday, it’s about me, and I didn’t want it to be about me. There was five girls there that day that made their debuts, they got to sing the England song for the first time, and have their first England win.
“It was so special, there were family members there, obviously cap presentations at the beginning of the game, but cap presentations at the end of the game which has become a bit of a tradition, where the last debutant passes the cap onto the next debutant. So all the family members come into the dressing room – it was Bess Heath who’d made her ODI debut who then had to hand out another cap to five new players. The point of it is you’re passing on the cap to the next person.”