England relished ‘free chance to show off’ admits Nat Sciver-Brunt

England beat Pakistan in record fashion in their final Women’s T20 World Cup group match

(Getty Images)

Nat Sciver-Brunt admitted England “targeted” their Women’s T20 World Cup match against Pakistan, which culminated in a record-breaking victory in Cape Town, as a chance to show off.

England attacked from the outset throughout the tournament and constantly looked to find the boundaries, but they reached new ground with their 114-run victory, breaking two records.

Heather Knight’s side became the first team ever to score more than 200 in an innings in Women’s T20 World Cups and secured the competition’s biggest-ever winning margin by runs, beating South Africa’s 113-run win over Thailand in 2020.

Sciver-Brunt struck an unbeaten 81 from just 40 balls as England set Pakistan 214 to win, before Pakistan were reduced to 99 for nine from their 20 overs.

“We did sort of target this game previously in the tournament,” England’s top-scorer said.

“I think we’ve been building up to a performance like this.

“We sort of targeted this game as a chance to show everyone as a team what we’re about and (with) it being the last game in our group as well, it was a free chance to show off a bit and do the things that we do really well as a group.”

Australia have dominated women’s cricket in recent years but England have won all their matches at the T20 World Cup so far, a marked improvement on their narrow qualification from last year’s one-day international World Cup in New Zealand.

Sciver-Brunt admitted the team have been encouraged by their new coach Jon Lewis to push themselves and play attacking cricket.

“It’s something Lewis has definitely asked us to do, to push,” she said.

“He is finding random records that we have beaten, not the standard ones.

“But it’s important for us to be pushing ourselves and pushing our standards higher and higher.

“I guess if we can do that consistently, the world is ours really.”