Kate Cross owes something of a debt to Australia. On Tuesday, as the Women’s Ashes begins at Leicester, the England seamer is set to go head to head against them, seeking to destroy their batting lineup while knowing that without playing alongside them in the Women’s Big Bash League last winter, she might never have been selected for this series at all.
Cross, who between July 2016 and July 2018 did not feature in a single match for England, played under the Australia captain, Meg Lanning, at Perth Scorchers over the winter, and says it transformed her cricket.
“I’d got to a stage where I’d worked hard on my skills and how to bowl in different types of situation, but I’d had no practice at that under pressure,” she says. “That’s where the Big Bash helped, because the games came thick and fast and they were hard games. You’re challenging yourself against the best in the world.”
Cross’s international renaissance began in March in India. Before that series she had not played a T20 international in four years, but in the third T20, she was charged with bowling the last over of the match, with India needing only three runs for victory. Amazingly Cross ensured they failed to get over the line, bang on target with every ball she bowled, conceding only a single and taking two wickets into the bargain. “Because of playing in the Big Bash, I felt like I’d been there before and I’d experienced those feelings of knowing what to bowl, what fields to have, how best to bowl dot balls and that kind of thing,” she says.
So far this summer she has featured in every match against West Indies, finishing with figures of one for 12, two for four and two for 16 in the 50-over games. Cross is “back to somewhere near my best”.
It has been a long time coming for the 27-year-old, who has been frank about the struggles she faced with her mental health when she was consistently failing to achieve selection. Part of the first cohort of professional female cricketers when the England and Wales Cricket Board introduced central contracts in May 2014, she freely admits she found it very difficult when “my hobby became my job overnight”.
She says: “It happened very quickly. There were rumours that we might become professional, and then suddenly it was a reality. I was training more than I played, and there were plenty of times when I was thinking that it was a lot of effort to not get any rewards.”
The hardest part of all, she says, was being omitted from the 2017 World Cup squad and having to be on the sidelines as she watched the success of her teammates. “It was almost sickening for me to see that happen,” Cross says. “I was at Lord’s that day, and I remember being in tears when Anya [Shrubsole] took that last wicket. You’re thinking: ‘Oh God, I don’t want them to win because I’m not part of it, but actually it’s the best thing for us as a team if we are winning that and the girls deserve to win it.’ So you’re fighting emotions.”
From England’s perspective, Cross has clawed her way back into contention at a crucial point: not only does she have rich memories of success against Australia to draw on – she returned figures of six for 70 on her Test debut at Perth in January 2014 – but as a genuine seamer, she offers something different to England’s other two frontline bowlers, Shrubsole and Katherine Brunt.
“I’ve got the boring role!” she says with a laugh. “I try and contain batters and put pressure on by bowling a lot of dot balls. Robbo [the England coach, Mark Robinson] jokes with me that I’ve got the workhorse role in the team, I’m the one who bowls uphill into the wind and does the job that no one wants.”
That Cross is about to go up against those who over the winter became her teammates and friends in the WBBL only makes the Ashes a more potent contest. “You have to work a bit harder because they know your weaknesses. It makes the Ashes a bit more special because some of these girls are my friends. Jess Jonassen [the Australia spinner] has invited me to her wedding next year. And you’re always going to rub your mates’ faces in it if you beat them.”