After England qualified for the T20 World Cup knockouts with a win over West Indies, Lauren Winfield-Hill has said they are in "the best place they've ever been".
Speaking on Wisden Women's Cricket Weekly podcast this week, Winfield-Hill praised the side who are currently unbeaten in the tournament.
"I'm really excited by what I'm seeing from England at the minute," she said. "I'm loving what Lottie [Charlotte Edwards] has built the team around the all-rounders. They've been better in the field, although not been perfect. But I just think there's loads to get excited about. I think this is the best place they've ever been with probably the best player in the world, hopefully, yet to come back into the side."
England secured victory over the West Indies by 38 runs at Lord's on Wednesday, they're fourth consecutive win of the group stage. The win meant they secured a spot in the knockouts, although whether they top their group will be determined by both their final group stage game against New Zealand, and whether the West Indies beat Ireland today (June 27).
"I feel like they're a side that are handling pressure better, they're adapting better," said Winfield-Hill. "There are still a few hiccups, lumps and bumps in the road, but I'm not worried that we haven't had a complete performance yet. I'm excited for when that complete performance may come, hopefully in a semi and a final."
Winfield-Hill: England is now one of the best places in the world to play white-ball cricket
Scores at this year's Women's T20 World Cup have been higher than in any previous edition of the competition. Before this edition, 200 had only been crossed once before in the tournament's history. So far in the 2026 edition, 200 has been passed on five seperate ocassions. Run rates across the tournament have also been significantly higher than in previous editions. At time of writing, the average runs scored per over across all teams during the 2026 tournament is 7.43, with the next highest equivalent figure 6.9 runs per over in the 2023 tournament.
"I think English cricket at the minute, the grounds and the venues and the surfaces that we're playing on are so conducive to stroke making," said Winfield-Hill. "We're not talking about, you know, brute force and power, we're talking about proper, proper cricket shots.
"You look at all those players who are there and thereabouts and they're not big in stature. They're not the ones that just give it a wallop, they're proper players."
There have been more hundreds scored so far in this edition of the tournament than in any other edition. Danni Wyatt-Hodge scored her third T20I century in the tournament's opening game, while Chamari Athapaththu hit an unbeaten 106 against Ireland in Bristol last week. In South Africa's penultimate group stage game against Netherlands, Tazmin Brits scored her maiden T20I hundred.
"I think the wickets at the minute and probably more in particular, the outfields, because we've had really good weather, the outfields are absolutely electric, which is so good for women's cricket," said Winfield-Hill. "Even sometimes when you play over in Australia and they have the drop in pitches and the pitch is flat as a fart, but the outfield's quite coarse and thick because they play AFL on it, and those sorts of venues actually have quite slow outfields.
"Whereas England, we've got really good cricket wickets, but the outfields are electric. And I think that's so good for women's cricket because it's a fair contest. If you bowl well, you still get enough out of the surface for sure. But it's so conducive to real high class batting... You're not just seeing people trying to hack it over the infield. I personally find it's it's one of the best places to bat in the world nowadays."
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