The seasoned seamer Katherine Sciver-Brunt has announced that her performance in the World Cup will be her last after England’s semi-final loss in Cape Town.
After the current T20 World Cup, where hosts South Africa will play reigning champions Australia in the championship match on Sunday after a six-run victory over England in their semifinal, Sciver-Brunt, who will turn 38 in July, has not made any decisions regarding her playing career. This summer, England will host Australia in the Women’s Ashes.
Before the multi-format series in England last year against South Africa, which began with a Test at Taunton, Sciver-Brunt had retired from Test cricket.
Even though she only played in the T20I team that travelled to the Caribbean in the run-up to this World Cup, the Ashes are a multi-format contest as well, and she might be able to participate in the white-ball series.
“I’ve been thinking about retirement daily for two years,”
In a news release published on Saturday, Sciver-Brunt advised the ICC.
“It used to be after every tour, I’d question what I was doing.
“But as it’s drawn closer, I’ve thought about it a bit more seriously and it does creep into your mind when you’re training, mainly because of the pressure other people put on you. You get all those comments and then you start to think, ‘Oh, am I slowing down? Should I stop? Am I embarrassing myself?’
“I’ve always said I would like to retire on top, where I’m still wanted, I’m still picked in the first XI, I’m not less than what I used to be. That’s how I’ve felt in the last six months, those things are starting to creep in where I can see somebody taking my role and doing it just as well. This is definitely the last World Cup and beyond this point, I’m fairly close to it all being along the same line, so it won’t be long.”
For criticizing younger squad members for fielding faults during England’s semi-final loss, Sciver-Brunt received criticism. In five tournament games, Sciver-Brunt collected four wickets with an average of 30.75 and an economy rate of 7.53.
In the group match against India, where she took 0 for 39 from three overs, she gave up 19 runs in the last over, then on Friday, when South Africa set a target of 165, she gave up 18 runs off the final over while taking 0 for 33 from four overs.
Sciver-Brunt first competed in the 2005 ODI competition, making this his sixth T20 World Cup and eleventh overall. She made her debut for her country in a Test match against New Zealand at Scarborough in 2004.
The following year, she played her first ODI whilst on England’s tour of South Africa. In the 2009 T20 World Cup final, which England won together with the ODI and T20 titles and the Ashes that year, she went 3-for-6. She was a member of the team that won the 50-over World Cup back at Lord’s in 2017.
She and her wife Nat, who has scored the most runs in the competition so far, showed up to the event sporting shirts with their married names across them.
“Looking back on my career, I’d like to think I was Mrs. Consistent,”
she said.
“I’d like to be remembered as someone who was always at the top of my game and always contributing for my country, helping us in a winning cause and giving everything, I had.
“The good thing is Nat can carry on my name, the legacy of Brunt will carry on, which is great. Having my name associated with hers is also great because she’s a bit of a legend in her own right now.”
Katherine announced to Sky Sports earlier this month that she would give up playing cricket if England won the T20 World Cup, but that if they lost, she might take part in the Ashes series. And she has made it clear that she is still adjusting to the thought that, when the time comes, she won’t be playing alongside Nat in England colors.
“A lot of people say, ‘how does she put up with you?’ She has patience in abundance and empathy and she understands me and loves me for who I am,”
Katherine said.
“We just work really well together and complement each other, and there is never a day where we want to be apart.
“Coming into my retirement, she will be gone, but hopefully the ECB will take me along. I’ll be slinging in the nets to all of them.”