England ‘won’t be changing much’ ahead of India clash at T20 World Cup

Sarah Glenn insists England “won’t be changing much” ahead of their T20 World Cup clash against India.

Both teams go into Saturday’s game unbeaten with two wins each, but England are currently leading Group 2 on net run rate.

Heather Knight’s team have had a great start to the tournament, winning their opener against the West Indies by seven wickets and the following game against Ireland by four wickets with some particularly impressive performances from Sophie Ecclestone, Nat Sciver-Brunt and Alice Capsey so far.

However, Saturday’s game is set to pose a more challenging task for England, who are second in the ICC World IT20 rankings while India sit in fourth, but leg-spinner Glenn insists their preparations remain the same.

“We want to play our game for what it is, no matter who the opposition is,” she told a press conference.

“Even against West Indies and Ireland there were phases in the game where they came at us as well, so we’ve had that little practice of how to punch back and we know we do that quite well so we won’t be changing much.

“We’re in a really good place in terms of our cricket, we’re trying to be really positive on the front foot.

“I feel like we’ve still got our best game to come yet, we just need to piece it all together and obviously we’re doing well so far, so hopefully we can do that on Saturday.

“We understand that India are a tough side so hopefully we can get through that and piece our performance together.”

Glenn will be looking to build on her solid performances so far in this tournament after taking four wickets across the first two games.

Her best came against Ireland, where she took three wickets for 19 runs on a day dominated by spin with three wickets for Ecclestone and two for Charlie Dean, and Glenn admitted she is pleased with her performances.

She said: “I’m happy, I think I’ve always got a plan in my head and if it pulls off I’m always a bit happy, especially early on in the tournament it helps you settle in, because in the first game I was very nervous.

“I’m happy with how I’m going, but I know there’s some challenges on the way so I’m prepping for that and trying to be really proactive, as are the rest of the girls.”

England’s previous match against Ireland was dominated by talk of the Women’s Premier League auction, which was ongoing during Monday’s game and saw Nat Sciver-Brunt become one of Britain’s highest-paid sportswomen after being sold for 3.2 crore (about £320,000) to Mumbai Indians.

Ecclestone, Knight, Dunkley and Capsey were all picked up too and Glenn believes her team-mates dealt with the demands of the day well.

She said: “It was a weird day because some people just didn’t want to talk about it, some wanted to get it out their system, but I thought we managed it really well, to be honest.

“I thought the girls stuck to what we had to do, just focused on that game and let what was out of our control just not get into our minds.

“I thought we dealt with it in a really healthy way and we’re just back to normal now, it was just a one-off thing but I thought we approached it really well.”