England Set Out To Defend T20 Crown

 

by James Skitt - 30.04.10

Reigning champions England must negotiate a tough group including Australia, South Africa and hosts West Indies if they are to retain their ICC Women’s World Twenty20 crown at the 2010 tournament in the West Indies next week.

The squad, which receives a range of support services from the English Institute of Sport (EIS), put the finishing touches to their preparation with a two day training camp at The National Cricket Performance Centre in Loughborough last week, where each player received a nutritional assessment from EIS Head of Performance Nutrition Jeni Pearce.

She told eis2win.co.uk: “The ICC Twenty20 World Cup will combine intense, fast paced matches with minimal recovery time both during the matches themselves (between innings) and afterwards in terms of recovery before the next match.”

“During the pre-tournament camp we worked on various individual nutritional strategies with the players which were specific to the Twenty20 format, whilst we also looked at their hydration strategies and provided a range of sports drinks for the squad to take with them to the Caribbean.”

In addition to nutritional support, EIS Physiotherapist Rachel Evans and Strength and Conditioning coach Ian Crump also attended the camp and have now travelled with the squad to provide support throughout the tournament.

England meet India and Sri Lanka for warm up matches in St Kitts on Sunday, May 2 and Monday, May 3 respectively, before their opening group A fixture against Australia at Warner Park, St Kitts on Wednesday, May 5.

England Coach Mark Lane told ECBTV: “It will be harder retaining the title than when we won it last year.”

“We are confident we can do well. Australia and New Zealand will be strong and West Indies are dangerous. It only takes one or two players to fire to win a game.”

You can follow all the news and results from the tournament via the ECB website here

England women’s World Twenty20 schedule:

Group A (St Kitts): England, Australia, West Indies, South Africa
May 5: v Australia
May 7: v West Indies
May 9: v South Africa

May 13: Semi-final A (St Lucia) 
May 14: Semi-final B (St Lucia)

May 16: Final (St Lucia)

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