Nat Sciver-Brunt: "We saw with the Lionesses and how they played in the Euros, how that will have inspired so many people. Hopefully we can do something similar with the [Ashes] summer we've got coming up"
Wednesday 8 March 2023 13:03, UK
England cricketing sensation Nat Sciver-Brunt has spoken of the "life-changing" money on offer to players with the introduction of the new Women's Premier League tournament in India and on the pride she takes in inspiring the next generation of sporting stars.
Sciver-Brunt, one of the sport's premier all-rounders, sold for a massive £320,000 in the inaugural WPL auction last month - the joint-highest price tag for an overseas player in the India-based tournament.
She played in the opening game and hit a fifty in her second outing - both wins for her Mumbai Indians team. Speaking to Sky Sports as part of International Women's Day, the 30-year-old hailed the WPL as "the beginning of a new leap forward for women's cricket."
Asked if the tournament feels like a game-changer in women's sport, Sciver said: "It does. Just the sheer scale of it all. Everything is really heightened.
"Going into it, I didn't really know exactly what to expect. I obviously watched the men's IPL [Indian Premier League] for quite a long time and it all just seemed so big.
"Being out here is a bit mad and has been a bit chaotic, but it has been really brilliant so far.
"Being involved in the first game added another level of nerves. The whole spectacle of the day, the expectations of everyone in our team, on the other team, in the crowd and everyone watching around the world almost, I could feel that it was big and exciting".
As for the sizeable sum of money she will earn, Sciver-Brunt added: "I don't know if it has really sunk in until the money comes into the bank.
"It certainly will be life-changing… I feel so lucky, grateful and a bit surprised really that it actually happened."
Having made her debut 10 years ago, just before the introduction of 18 full-time player contracts in 2014 - of which Sciver-Brunt earned one - she has witness first-hand the game's rapid growth over the last decade and women's sport as a whole.
Growing up with David Beckham as her "sporting hero" and having got the chance to meet him as a team mascot with England while growing up in Poland, Sciver-Brunt too wants to be an inspiration for future generations.
"The England men's football team came to play in Poland and everyone in my school - the British school in Warsaw - had to write a letter as to why they should be a mascot," she said. "Clearly I was very persuasive because I got selected.
"I had to fight my way to the front so I could be stood in front of Becks, my sporting hero. It was an incredible moment, really special and inspiring.
She added: "In the England women's side, we've always taken pride in being a role model for someone, for anyone. To reach even just one person was enough for us.
"To be that person that a young girl or boy looks up to and wants to be like, that's something that we've really thought about since I've started playing. Making sure that you're giving back to the next generation coming through.
"And we've seen it in the likes of Freya Kemp, Alice Capsey or Maia Bouchier. They were watching us years ago and now they're here. That's something we take real pride in."
Following the WPL - which you can watch live on Sky Sports throughout the month of March - it's another big year for women's cricket, with the third edition of The Hundred kicking off in August following off the back of an Ashes summer.
Sciver-Brunt tasted victory in her first two Ashes series' against Australia, but England are winless over the sides' last four encounters spanning nearly 10 years.
Much like the England men's team, under the leadership of Brendon McCullum, the women's side have adopted a more aggressive approach under new head coach Jon Lewis, posting a record-breaking score of 213 against Pakistan in the T20 World Cup in February.
Though that tournament ended in heartbreak with a loss to hosts South Africa in the semi-final, Sciver-Brunt is hopeful the team's new style can fire them to victory in the Ashes and help inspire a nation - ala the Lionesses Euros win in 2022.
"It's a really exciting and fun time to be playing for England," Sciver-Brunt said.
"We've always been able to play the shots we wanted to. But now our coaches have allowed us to do it without fear.
"Everyone had the skills and the shots that we're seeing now, but just weren't able to play them more frequently. It has opened up a new way of doing things for everyone."
She added: "We saw with the Lionesses and how they played in the Euros, how that will have inspired so many people.
"Hopefully we can do something similar with the summer we've got coming up.
"Chances for the country to really get behind a team, whatever sport it is, that's only going to benefit everyone really - and provide more inspiring role models for younger generations."
Heather Knight thinks there is real momentum behind women's sport, with the "blockbuster" Ashes series just 100 days away.
The highly-anticipated Ashes summer includes only the second-ever five-day women's Test, which is scheduled to begin at Trent Bridge on June 22.
"[I'm] super excited, obviously. The operation the ECB have done in terms of actually scheduling the fixtures at prime time I think is so important," England captain Knight said.
"Kicking it [the women's Ashes] off with a Test match at Trent Bridge is super cool. I think everyone's super excited for the men's Ashes, the way Ben (Stokes) and his team are playing, the excitement around. This is certainly going to be a blockbuster series.
"Hopefully we can play some really entertaining cricket as well and both have lots of success.
"I think what we've started to do as a team, we've started to build something, a real sort of identity of how we want to play things and how we want to move things forward, [to] keep pushing the boundaries of the game.
"That's a real focus for us - to entertain and play exciting cricket - so I certainly think it's going to be a blockbuster series."
As well as the Ashes and the T20 World Cup earlier this year, the inaugural Women's Premier League is currently being played in India, as part of a big year of women's sport, which also includes the football World Cup, and Solheim Cup in golf.
Knight, who is currently playing for the Royal Challengers Bangalore Women in the WPL, said: "I think there's a real momentum behind women's sport at the moment.
"I also think the Lionesses winning the Euros last summer just catapulted women's sport into the limelight again.
"It feels like the investment that there's been over the last few years started to really capture the public's imagination and them wanting to watch really high quality sport is pretty awesome. It's a good time to be involved."
Over the last few years cricket in England has sought to attract a wider audience to the game, and shift its perception in British society, with The Hundred tournament a major vehicle for that.
Fellow England internationals Kate Cross, Tammy Beaumont and Freya Davies also spoke to Sky Sports for International Women's Day about the incredible growth of the women's game...
England bowler, Kate Cross:
"International Women's Day provides the opportunity to recognise what we've been through, how much we've achieved and how much the game has moved forward.
"I can believe how far things have come, but can't believe how quickly it has happened. It has been astronomical.
"I remember coming to South Africa on a Lancashire U17s tour, and we had to pack bags at Tesco and Asda to get our flights paid for.
"The opportunities that women are getting now are similar to what men are being offered. And that's the thing that I've been sing and dancing about for a long time; it's not necessarily about being paid the same amount, it's about the opportunities.
"We're starting to have more of an argument for parity [in pay]. I don't think we're there yet. It's about getting the right opportunities for girls, the right facilities, the right coaches.
"I think we're just at the beginning of it, which is the most exciting part. What people are seeing is the potential of it.
"We're a team that really appreciates what went before us, the Rachel Heyhoe-Flints, the Charlotte Edwards', the Katherine Sciver-Brunts to an extent. We wouldn't be sat here with the contracts we're on without the people that have gone before us.
"And it makes you realise that we're the next generation who might be changing that for the 20-30 years down the line."
England batter, Tammy Beaumont:
"I had a few years at the start of my career where we got lottery funding, but without my parents - them helping me pay my rent or letting me go to university - I couldn't have played.
"Now, you see what's happening with the WPL, The Hundred is going to take over in the next few years and then there's the Women's Big Bash League [in Australia] as well.
"It's amazing how fast the sport has grown in just the space of my career, let alone what could happen in the next 10 years.
"I think that [equal pay with men] should be an aspirational goal of where we can get to. I don't think it's that far away anymore. If you'd have asked me this five years ago, I'd have said that it will be beyond my time - I'll be old, boring and irrelevant by the time that happens.
"It's about equal opportunity. I want a 10-year-old girl to have the same opportunity as a 10-year-old boy in cricket, and have the same ease of pathway.
"The tide has really turned. For young girls now, the opportunities are just endless."
England bowler, Freya Davies:
"I grew up playing boys' cricket. I loved it, but it's not the kind of environment that encourages girls to play cricket at that age.
"It's widely accepted that girls have a route into the game now. It's not a case of one standout girl in a field of 21 other boys. There's so many more options.
"They can play boys' cricket if they want to, because I still think there's a lot of merit for that, but they can also play for girls' teams and have a space where they feel comfortable.
"The game has come such a long way in 10 years. Us oldies are probably are a little bit jealous!
"I think there's still work to be done. The grassroots game has got to go in the right direction to make it competitive so they can really push for our spots.
"Obviously the men's set-up would be a dream, if we can get to that sort of level. But it's so exciting where we're at."
