From rock bottom to a World Cup final

To a certain degree, it's difficult to tell the story of this English team without telling the story of that Ashes. The January of 2025 when they couldn't buy themselves a win, irrespective of the format. A time when they couldn't look any further down.

After having seen a group-stage exit in the 2024 T20 World Cup, the Australian tour exposed their weaknesses repeatedly. Criticism came flying, and anger was directed at former teammates, the captain stepped down and the coach was asked to step away. As the rest of the teams were marching up, England lost their place of prominence in the women's game.

If every story has a start point, for this English side which now stands one step away from becoming the world champions, it was when they crashed, chose to reboot their cricket, and sat on a rebuilding process for over a year. The most obvious testimony to that is their place in the 2026 T20 World Cup final. And now, they stand in the way of Australia's attempt to seize that title.

But Natalie Sciver-Brunt, who has helmed this revival, has nothing to seek from that Australian summer - not even revenge. There is a new challenge upfront, enough to soothe the past pains, and more.

"Our team has come quite a long way since that Ashes tour," Sciver-Brunt said a day ahead of the final. "Everyone knows what it's about - we're playing in a World Cup final at home at Lord's. The occasion is already massive, and we're playing Australia. There's not really been any talk about the Ashes and, trying to prove people wrong from that. We've done a lot of hard work since that tour to show where we are as a group."

England have reached the final winning each of their games. While the senior players have stepped up - with Danni Wyatt-Hodge, Sciver-Brunt and Heather Knight being the highest scorers for the side in this tournament, the captain also reserved praise for the way the younger players have chipped in, especially when the opposition has come hard at them - whether it's the batters going on the attack, or the pressure on the youngsters to power-up in the death overs.

"We've had some great performances from Freya (Kemp) and Dani (Danielle Gibson) with the bat, taking the game on in the last five, six overs. And, Kemp bowling really well and sticking to her skills and what she's worked on. I think that the confidence that the bowling group has shown to keep changing their pace when the pressure's on, when you know someone's going to try and hit you out of the ground, that's been really special to see."

For now, Sciver-Brunt is so focussed on the task at hand, that she is yet to wrap her head around the enormity of the achievement of reaching the final, a feat England last achieved eight years ago.

"Katherine [Sciver-Brunt] said to me after the game the other night - it's actually bigger than you think it is. So I guess we've sort of been living in our bubble as a team together. And not letting anyone sort of stray out of that. I think once we finish the tournament and reflect over the next few weeks, we can hopefully see how much and how far we've come and what it's meant to people watching in the country, whilst this tournament's been going on."

England may not have won a World Cup since lifting the 50-over trophy in 2017, but Sciver-Brunt has plenty of experience to lean on, of captains who have lifted the trophy at Lord's in the past - whether it was head coach Charlotte Edwards in 2009 or Heather Knight in 2017. As the expectation at a home World Cup builds up, and the dream seems nearer than it has ever been, Sciver-Brunt says the challenge would be to ensure not get carried away in trying to do something out of the ordinary.

"It's two teams that have played against each other a lot, so we expect to know the opposition very well, and they'll know us very well. When it comes down to it, it's about who can deliver their skills better on the day. The message has been to enjoy yourself and stick to the skills that we've been working on.

"If we do need to go to a different plan, for the bowlers, they've been practicing it throughout the tournament and will be ready to execute that on the pitch. It's just about staying in the moment and knowing that we have, Plan B, C, D to turn to if we need to."

However, the English captain is under 'no illusion' that the challengers, Australia, are not going to make the final hurdle any easy for her side on Sunday.

"Every time we come up against Australia, it's going to be a tough battle. Both teams have got players that have got massive experience in the game. And also some youngsters who are massively talented as well. We know that lots of their players have got experience of playing in the knockout games, the finals, and had loads of success.

"We're under no illusion that it's going to be a really tough game tomorrow against Australia - finals like that don't come around that often."

For now - and possibly forever - the circling back to the start of the story is irrelevant. For England, for certain, the challenge now begins and ends at Lord's on July 5.