Unceremonious exit at T20 World Cup will hurt for long: Tammy Beaumont

The nature of England’s exit from the Women’s T20 World Cup last month in Australia is going to stay in the minds of everyone and will hurt for a long time, feels opener Tammy Beaumont. Having lost their opening fixture, England finished second in the group before they had their semi-final against India washed out without a ball being bowled. With no reserve day, India advanced as leaders of their group to a final against hosts Australia.



“Going out on a washout, a rain-affected game, it's still hard to put into words how you feel about it,” Beaumont was quoted as saying to ESPNcricinfo. “The raw emotion of when I’ve played in semi-finals and lost before is more obvious almost. This one’s going to burn and be annoying and niggly over a long period of time, almost until we get the chance to play again.



“You can argue until the cows come home we should have had a reserve day, but at the same time we also should have beaten South Africa and come top of the group and then we wouldn't have been on the wrong end of it,” she added.



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Beaumont and Co. were due to return to full training on April 14, meaning they have missed only a week of practice because of UK’s COVID-19 lockdown. But with the disease not looking to go back easily in near future, there is more time to reflect on the World Cup disappointment, besides the individual fitness programmes at home that have been given by the board.



Similarly, Beaumont has had time to ponder her own performance at the tournament with her scores reading 9, DNB, 6, 0. While she was sent down the order in the first three matches, Beaumont was promoted up the order alongside opener Danielle Wyatt in their last group tie against West Indies in a swap with Amy Joes.



“At the back end, things weren’t quite working out with the batting order and I got moved back to the top and obviously didn’t really take that opportunity either against West Indies,” Beaumont admitted. “But I felt really good going into that semi-final and was really hoping I could make quite a big impact in that game. It wasn't to be and it's probably one of the tournaments you look back on as more of a learning experience and something to motivate me going forward.”



Tammy Beaumont in action against South Africa during a T20 World Cup match against South Africa at the WACA. © Getty Images



In the 67 T20I innings that Beaumont has played so far, she batted in top three 43 times averaging 27.25 at No.2 with a strike rate of 112.86 and 26.30 in 13 matches at No.3 with a strike rate of 113.36. “I’ve been quite open in saying that I've always been more comfortable in the top order or opening or batting at No.3 so I think that was nice to go back to what I know,” Beaumont said.



“It was a little bit of a pressure situation in a must-win game in our last group game, to go in that situation and know that if we got through it would be straight into a World Cup semi-final when I think at that point I’d only faced maybe 10 balls in the whole tournament. But that’s what you train for as a professional cricketer and the fact that they felt comfortable doing that with someone like me, I actually felt pretty good about.



“It didn’t come off, I didn’t quite repay the selection, but hopefully in the future, I’ll get another chance and I will get to repay the faith of the coaches and the captain,” she added. Wicket-keeper Jones has had success at No.6 against Windies scoring a breezy unbeaten 23 off 13 balls, which is something t7hat might prompt coach Lisa Keightley to stick with Beaumont at the top.



And with Wyatt enjoying success at the top of the order with Beaumont against Pakistan recently in Malaysia, England captain Heather Knight hinted to stick with the pair in the 50-over World Cup in New Zealand in February and March next year.



“It’s something we’ll have to look at again,” Knight said. “Fifty-over cricket is definitely going to be our focus when we do get back playing and Tammy has proven that she’s a world-class opener in 50-over cricket so she’ll most definitely head to that role. Danni moved up to open in 50-over cricket on that tour to Malaysia against Pakistan and did it very successfully. We see Amy as quite adaptable in terms of where she can bat.”