Lauren Winfield-Hill has said that players who are not sure of their spots for England need to be playing more county cricket.
Only three England players were made available for the most recent round of the One Day Cup, with sides currently battling it out for knockout places. Notable figures such as Lauren Bell, Sophie Ecclestone, Amy Jones, Alice Capsey, Linsey Smith and Dani Gibson have been made unavailable for the rest of the season to manage workload.
Speaking on Wisden Women’s Cricket Weekly podcast, Winfield-Hill said: “I think if you’re dead cert to be in [England] teams then fairplay - refresh, replenish, take your breaks. If you’re somebody fighting for your spot, I’d be saying I want to play and I want to play in crunch times of the season. Every game counts when you’ve got finals rounds. You’d be wanting to knock the door down in high pressure games.
“You look at someone like Maia Bouchier and you think how much is she absolutely banging the door down and making her name an absolute cert. She belted it again yesterday and just gets better and better all the time at 50-over cricket. Well why is that? Well because she’s played a lot more of it.”
England have had a busy summer comparitive to normal, with three white-ball bilateral series as well as the T20 World Cup and Test match against Inida. However, they will not be playing international cricket for another six months, and several players currently unavailable for their counties last played competitive cricket last month in The Hundred.
“I think 50 over cricket, especially after T20 comps or The Hundred, is really difficult to find your tempo, to be able to repeat things for a long time. To convert those starts into big scores is challenging because you’re so used to everything being short and sharp and blitz and blast in T20,” said Winfield-Hill.
“If you look at the standard of the domestic game and you get all the best players available, it’s a higher standard than international cricket against some of those lesser teams.”
Winfield-Hill emphasised the importance of having two-way conversations in regards to selection.
‘‘I think if you’re somebody that’s not managing niggles and you feel good and you’re not fatigued or feel like you need that window of opportunity to reset and recharge, then I would be saying, right I’ve got ten days left of the season, yeah we’re at the back end, we’re tired, but I’ve got a group game, a semi and a final…let’s go!
‘‘They’re the games you want to play in, and then you can put your slippers on and get your deck chair out.”
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