Anya: I wish I could hit sixes like Freddie!
SPOTY hopeful Shrubsole on an amazing year
IT was late into the evening, many hours after the end of play, and the England cricket team were drinking in the bar, all following a team rule that everyone must still be wearing their playing kit when celebrating.
Happily, this is not another tale of high jinks from England’s touring party Down Under, but the scene that followed the England women’s side winning the World Cup this summer.
In the thick of it was Anya Shrubsole, player of the match. It had not just been her bustling, front- on style of pace bowling that had shades of Andrew Flintoff about it, but her heroics on the biggest stage, at Lord’s, that had turned the contest for her team earlier in the day.
Shrubsole took 6-46 in the final against India, carving through the opposition just when they were closing in on victory. That performance has earned her a place on the shortlist for this edition of BBC Sports Personality of the Year, an accolade won by Flintoff in 2005.
‘We have this team thing that if we are celebrating everyone has to still be wearing their kit, and we were just in the hotel bar with t eam- mates and f amily,’ says Shrubsole. ‘ It was a night of immense jubilation and some relief, knowing everything we had worked towards had come to fruition.’
Now in deep midwinter, Shrubsole is back in Bath and has been nursing a cold and looking after her newly acquired Labrador puppy. It is the city where she grew up and inherited a love of cricket from her father Ian, who briefly made it to Minor Counties level. She went to the same school as Olympic skeleton gold medallist Amy Williams, shortlisted for SPOTY in 2010.
When still only 12, Shrubsole made her debut for the Somerset women’s team. It turned out to be the first significant step on a road that, 14 years later, culminated in her match-winning performance on that uplifting July afternoon at Lord’s. Chasing England’s 228, their opponents were 191-3, with Punam Raut on 86. Enter Shrubsole to trap the opener lbw and set off a collapse that saw India lose seven wickets for 28 runs and end up nine short of their target. ‘I wouldn’t say we were panicking but we knew we were behind in the game,’ says Shrubsole, whose key delivery sparked a spell of five wickets in 19 balls. ‘At the same time we also knew that if we could get one wicket we might get two or three, and as it happened we took four in three overs.’
A full house of 24,000 cheered England to victory at a ground where Shrubsole had been taken by her parents to watch England as a child. Her father recreated a photo from that earlier visit, where she was pictured leaning over the fence watching the action.
The final had become a mainstream sporting triumph with Shrubsole’s profile suddenly elevated. It had been little noticed that there had been more echoes of Flintoff in the previous match, which has already won her one trophy this year, the MCC Spirit of Cricket Award named in honour of the late Christopher Martin-Jenkins.
In a tense semi-final at Bristol against South Africa, Shrubsole hit the winning boundary to seal victory by two wickets. However, before celebrating she took time to console the distraught South Africa captain Dane van Niekerk, reminiscent of the way Flintoff comforted Brett Lee after England’s Ashes win at Edgbaston in 2005.
‘It was actually just a spontaneous thing to do,’ she says. ‘I’ve lost plenty of finals and semi-finals so I know what it is like.’
She does, however, acknowledge a similarity with Flintoff. ‘I suppose I bowl a little bit like him. Unfortunately I don’t hit sixes in quite the way he used to do.’
The final brought some changes to her life, such as the novelty of being recognised in the street. ‘I was out walking with my Dad and people would come up and start talking. I’m never very good with names so I’d say to Dad, “How do we know them?” and he’d reply, “We don’t!” It took a bit of getting used to.
‘We have heard some nice stories of people being inspired by what we have done. As a team it is something we take very seriously — trying to show girls, and boys for that matter, how enjoyable a team sport it can be.’ Shrubsole is not
long back from Australia, where England failed to regain the Ashes. The next big goal is the T20 World Cup in the Caribbean next year.
First, however, is SPOTY, for which she is the first cricketer nominated since Ian Bell in 2013.
‘It’s a huge honour and I feel I will be representing our team. I’m a big fan of sports in general, and to be alongside someone like Anthony Joshua is amazing.
‘I watched his fight against Klitschko and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen.’