HOME OF CRICKET ...TO MY HOME OF FOOTBALL!

After the Lord’s show Anya can’t wait to go and watch her beloved Pompey

WORLD CUP star Anya Shrubsole will go from the Home of Cricket to the home of her beloved Portsmouth next season.

Congratulated by all and sundry from men’s skipper Joe Root to Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, England’s women have captured the imagination with their World Cup win, but for Shrubsole there was one message that stood out.

“I’m a big Portsmouth fan and they messaged me, so hopefully I’m going to see a game early next season,” said Shrubsole, 25.

“They’ve invited me along to a game to watch in the directors’ box, so that’ll be pretty cool. It’ll be a nice treat.

“My dad was born there and was a Portsmouth fan so I just followed suit, really.”

That is a bit of a theme with Shrubsole’s dad Ian playing a major influence on his daughter’s cricketing career that has seen her scale the heights of the game.

Before the final in which she took 6-46 and cheekily ‘added’ her name to the honours board, he posted an image of her watching on at Lord’s as a nine-year-old being inspired as he played in the National Club Championship for Bath.

But now Shrubsole (right) is the one doing the inspiring.

“To wake up as world champions is something pretty special and I still can’t quite believe it has happened,” she added. “My love of the game came mainly from dad and I’m happy he posted that photo.

“I remember that game at Lord’s pretty well. How can you not look out there and think it would be a pretty cool place to play. Never did I think it would be in a World Cup Final, or that we’d be winning it.”

Shrubsole’s composure in a tense finale is something every top athlete can identify with, but she is still coming to terms with what she did.

She said: “It’s only once it ends you kind of go, ‘I just won a World

Cup Final’, and it took me quite a long time after the game to realise the magnitude of what I had achieved, I was in a complete state of shock.”

The women take their ambassadorial roles seriously, playing with ‘All Star Cricket’ juniors the day after having signed thousands of autographs post-match, before celebrating with friends and family – although it was not quite at 2005 Ashes levels.

Katherine Brunt said: “A Sunday night in London is not exactly banging, but the celebrations were appropriate.”

ON TOP OF THE WORLD England women were all smiles after winning the cricket World Cup at Lord’s Most dot balls in the tournament, from Katherine Brunt Centuries scored by England, of 14 overall. Two from Nat Sciver and one apiece from Heather Knight,...