Sticking with same players for Women’s T20 World Cup leaves England in a twist | Raf Nicholson

Edwards disagreed with this assessmenton Wednesday. “It’s a very different side to the one that walked out in the last game of the Ashes,” she said. “Especially Dani Gibson and Freya Kemp: we’ve seen a real confidence build in those players. A real belief.”

Edwards added that the 19-year-old batter Davina Perrin, who lit up the Hundred semi-final last August with a swashbuckling century, had been in the mix for selection, but there was no opening spot available. “She hasn’t had as much exposure to other places in the order. You need quite a versatile batter on the bench,” Edwards said.

The numbers support Edwards’s choices. The leading run-scorers in England’s intra-squad series in Pretoria in March – designed as a World Cup squad-filtering mechanism – were Dunkley, Capsey and Wyatt-Hodge. Perrin batted three times in five matches and scored 37 runs, with a top score of 18. But maybe, at a time when the powers-that-be are absolutely desperate to find themselves a cricketing version of Ellie Kildunne, it was worth taking a punt on a teenager who is capable of playing a once-in-a-generation innings?

There is a widespread perception that however many global tournaments or Ashes series England lose, there is a core of players who are undroppable. This squad does nothing to disrupt that sentiment. Three of them – Knight, Sciver-Brunt and Wyatt-Hodge – are not just survivors from the Lord’s triumph of 2017, but have played in every World Cup since (there have been six in all formats) and have won a grand total of zero trophies between them. Asking the public to trust that things will be different on the seventh occasion would be, well, insanity. But here we are.

For now, the hopes of a new generation rest on the 18-year-old left-arm spinner Tilly Corteen-Coleman: the only uncapped player in the squad. Her giddy excitement at the news – “I’ve been on cloud 9 ever since” – was a reminder of why Edwards likes her so much.

Here at last is a youngster who, even in the days of picking up a £105,000 price-tag in the Hundred auction, still feels the same passion and delight about representing England that Edwards did when she, too, was called up as a teenager, back in the amateur era. “Whether I’m on the pitch or running drinks, it will be a massive learning opportunity,” Corteen-Coleman said. “I’m going to be try to be the best water girl I can be.”

She is right to be cautious as she is fighting with at least one of Linsey Smith, the vice-captain, Dean, and the world No 2, Ecclestone, for a spot. But it is also the kind of humility some of her teammates could use a little more