ECCLESTONE BACKS ENGLAND CAPTAIN DEAN TO DELIVER AGAINST SCOTLAND
Media release
England might be without skipper Nat Sciver-Brunt against Scotland on Saturday but Sophie Ecclestone insists vice-captain Charlie Dean is a perfect replacement.
Sciver-Brunt has been ruled out of the next two matches at the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 2026 after a recurrence of a troublesome calf injury.
That issue had kept her out of recent series against New Zealand and India, both of which England won under Dean, but she appeared in fine form when the tournament began.
A fluent 46 not out helped push England past the 200 mark against Sri Lanka in the tournament opener and she backed that up with an excellent 48 against Ireland before retiring hurt.
As a result, Dean is back in the hot seat and Ecclestone insists she is a ready-made replacement.
“They are both quite chilled characters,” Ecclestone said. “There is not much of a difference between them.
“Charlie has been captain recently so it is nice for her to not be coming in blindsided. It will be like a duck to water again I am guessing.
“It is not ideal for Nat to miss the next two games but Deano is going to take charge and it is really exciting for her to be back and captaining at the World Cup, it is really cool.”
This will be the first time England and Scotland have met in a World Cup on English soil and the two teams know each other well.
Kirstie Gordon even played five times for England at the 2018 World Cup before switching allegiances to Scotland last year and spinner Ecclestone, 27, admits it will be strange to play her former teammate.
“It will be pretty weird,” she admitted.
“When we went to the West Indies in 2018, we were the spinners in the attack together so it is weird for her to be playing for a different team.
“But she is a great bowler, so it is nice for her to get here with Scotland. We just want to stop her from taking wickets tomorrow night.”
She added: “I feel like Scotland are a force to be reckoned with. It is very fun to play against Scotland and Ireland and so to play them at the World Cup is exciting. It will be nice to take them on at Headingley tomorrow and hopefully get the win.
“They have Kirstie and obviously the Bryce sisters, who I have played with at different teams. They can take games away from their opponents and so we have to be at our best.”
England have two wins from two so far, while Scotland are desperate to bounce back after a seven-run defeat to the West Indies at the same ground on Thursday.
That dented their hopes of reaching the semi-finals, with this game against England now even more vital.
With a world ranking gap of nine spots, they will go in as massive underdogs, but Rachel Slater insists her team are not happy to simply show up after losing by 10 wickets to England on this stage two years ago.
She said: “I think we're in a much better place now as a group than we were at that last World Cup so I don't think we were going to be like 'oh that's amazing what a day out'.
“I think we're here to win as many games as we can and I think we've shown that in the first two games.
“So it's exciting and it's going to be a great day and a big occasion like always when you get to play big rivals, but I don't think it was a case of 'oh it's going to be class what an experience', we're here to win and perform so it's just another opportunity to do that.”
Scotland almost beat the West Indies but Stafanie Taylor’s late cameo with the bat, and a stuttering start to the chase proved costly in the narrow loss.
Slater admitted it is a much narrower margin for error are at the highest level.
She added: “It's still a pretty new experience to us to be playing at World Cup's against the biggest teams in the world and the best players, and I think you just have to learn that you won't get the same amount of chances, and good players will punish you if you make mistakes.”