Jon Lewis wants England to rediscover ‘fearless’ approach on South Africa tour

Head coach Jon Lewis wants England to rediscover their “fearless” Ashes approach on the upcoming tour to South Africa and is expecting “a real response” to their disappointing T20 World Cup exit.
England crashed out of last month’s competition in the UAE after a six-wicket defeat to the West Indies in their final group game saw them miss out on a place in the semi-finals due to net run-rate.
Windies openers Hayley Matthews and Qiana Joseph helped their side chase down a 142-run target with two overs remaining as sloppy fielding from England saw Joseph dropped four times on her way to 52.
That consigned England to a frustrating early exit, having gone into the game on the back of three successive wins in Group B.
England’s attention now switches to their tour of South Africa, starting with a T20 match on November 24, and Lewis hopes his side can rediscover some of last summer’s form which saw them come from behind to draw a gripping multi-format Ashes series against Australia.
“There’ll be some really strong group reflection when we get to South Africa. I know this team is resilient and will respond,” Lewis said.
“I expect a real response from the T20 team in particular in this series against South Africa.
“What I’d like us to do is go back to how we were playing last summer against the Australians, how fearless we were.
“I felt we became a little safer at times in our decision making around the skills we were going to use and when we were going to use the skills.
“A lot of that is condition dependent and we have to think about how we’re going to adapt to the conditions we’re playing in.
“The work begins now to put that right in terms of getting better with our skills and be braver with our skills. Then moving the team forward, we’ll look to see how we go when we get to South Africa.”
Broadcaster Alex Hartley, a member of England’s 2017 World Cup-winning side, was one of the critics in the aftermath of the team’s T20 World Cup display and suggested they needed to improve their fitness – something Lewis disagrees with.
“On the fitness front, I spoke to someone about that last week. I just don’t agree with that,” he said.
“We’re in the right direction with our physical fitness, lots of progress across the board in different parts of fitness.
“There’s loads of different parts of fitness, power, speed, endurance, availability.
“Our players are available more often than not, I think we’ve got about 95 per cent availability over the last six months of all our playing squad. On top of that they’re improving physically across the board.”
Earlier this month England named three teams for the South Africa trip, which consists of three T20s, three one-day internationals and a Test match.
Alice Capsey was omitted but Lewis hopes the 20-year-old all-rounder can return stronger after having time away to work on her game.
“The reason for leaving Alice out from the T20 squad was her inconsistency over a period of time, not just at the World Cup,” he said.
“Alice’s form has been trending downwards for probably the last eight to nine months. My real belief is that talent will always come through over time.
“In terms of her not being selected for these three games, I felt it was a really good time for us and her to have a reset in how she goes about what she does and give her a little more time to work out the issues she’s having within her game and then come back stronger.”