The high ceiling of Sarah Glenn

NICK FRIEND: Eighteen months into her international career, Glenn is set to play in front of her home fans for the first time. Here, she discusses a whirlwind ascent on the world stage and the role of hockey - and Wayne Madsen - in her development

Deandra Dottin, Stafanie Taylor, Bismah Maroof, Hayley Matthews, Ashleigh Gardner, Rachael Haynes, Meg Lanning, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Marizanne Kapp and Amy Satterthwaite.

Sarah Glenn’s list of international scalps reads like a Who’s Who of the leading lights in the women’s game. They account for 16 of her 38 England wickets, ahead of her first proper summer as part of Heather Knight’s side. Last year’s calendar – five T20Is played out in September behind closed doors against West Indies – isn’t quite what she has signed up for.

In hindsight, allowing Glenn to return to Central Sparks ahead of last week’s one-off Test against India was an error: put bluntly, she is the leg-spinner that England craved for so long and should be penned in as such – not pencilled – for the foreseeable. Given her raw ability with the bat – she briefly opened the batting in the Kia Super League and last month smashed a match-winning half century in the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy – she might just become the perfect cricketer for her country.

Gold dust. And Lisa Keightley knows it, having frequently spoken in glowing terms about the high ceiling of a 21-year-old with an enormous future ahead of her, whose skillset – an attacking leggie and a hard-hitting finisher – equates to bingo in the pantheon of English cricket’s obsessions.

“I feel like for me it has happened very quickly, so I’ve just tried to keep things simple and tried to enjoy the experience,” she tells The Cricketer, speaking at the start of June from the Kia Oval, where her rapid rise has led to this: her positioning as one of the poster figures for the start of a fifty-day countdown to the launch of The Hundred.

“You never know how long these things are going to last for. To get to where I am now, I’ve been really happy with that progress.”

If such a contradiction is possible, lockdown came at a good time for Glenn as a chance to reflect on a whirlwind introduction to the game’s highest echelons. Before lining up in a home international, she had already faced Pakistan, Australia, India, South Africa, Thailand, Sri Lanka, West Indies and New Zealand on the other side of the world.

^{Sarah Glenn has become a key part of Heather Knight's England side}

“I felt like I took it as an opportunity to look back and enjoy the success that I’ve had, but also to have a think about what I want to work on moving forward and how I can get better.”

Simply, it has been a remarkable road to this juncture: Glenn was home-schooled until joining Trent College for sixth form and juggled cricket with hockey, playing at national level as a junior and for Belper in the Derbyshire National League. She only hung up her stick when she could no longer manage both.

“It’s really hard because I really miss hockey and I’ve got such a strong passion for it, even now,” she says. “I think I’ll definitely pick it up again once I’ve finished with cricket. But deep down, I’m glad I chose cricket. It means more to me and it brings it back home, having grown up in it from a young age.”

Her hockey team have moved on in her absence too – “it is a ruthless sport” – and she admits to not having played at all in the recent past.

“But I’ll probably go for a hit every now and then on an Astro by myself just to hit a ball around, which I’ve been dying to do. I had to take a while to get adjusted to just playing cricket and not hockey. I’d been so used to being stressed all the time that I had to learn how to chill out and learn what to do with my spare time.”

Her club, though, remains her happy place and a sanctuary when the rigours of international cricket call for a dose of homely reality. She has remained in touch with friends and former colleagues: “It’s quite nice to go back there and have a chat and a beer.”

Among those teammates was Kyla Madsen, wife of Derbyshire batsman Wayne – himself a former hockey player, who represented South Africa at the Commonwealth Games and coached Glenn as a junior.

It is a quirk that answers a question that has been brewing since the England leg-spinner used an interview in Wisden Cricket Monthly to crown him as her cricketing hero.

“When I was playing hockey, I played with his wife,” she laughs. “He coached me as a junior and when I made my National League debut.

“He always referred to cricket terms because of who he was: strong base, power hitting and things like that.”

^{England are rarely stronger than when Glenn and Sophie Ecclestone are bowling in tandem}

Most interestingly perhaps is how closely she has analysed him at the crease, recognising the similarities of their background and using Madsen as an unlikely base on which to model her game.

“When I watch him play cricket, I can see that he played hockey in how he uses his wrists and in certain shots. That’s why I look up to him as a cricketer: that’s how I want to play and that’s how I’ve grown up as well. I think he really accesses a lot of power, and I want to be quite a powerful player. Obviously, Wayne has been really successful in the T20 Blast.”

Speaking on this subject last year, Madsen told The Cricketer: “The skill elements are similar in terms of ball and stick, ball and bat. The sweep shots for me came naturally to me from hockey. In hockey, I used to stand on the post, where there is a link to pull shots and stuff to try to keep out drag flicks.

“There is definitely a nice balance between the two; the skills complement each other, especially the modern cricket game where you’re trying to hit 360 degrees – the deflection skills from hockey have certainly stood me in good stead.”

Glenn has carried over that approach into the women’s game as well; several players on the circuit have played plenty of hockey – take former England batter Susie Rowe, for example, who took a five-year cricketing hiatus to devote her sporting attention to the sport, before returning last year with South East Stars.

“There are just subtle differences in how they hit the ball,” says Glenn. It is something she considers when bowling to them. “I’ll have the same fields, but I’ll change the angle slightly because of how the ball comes off the bat (of a hockey player).”

For a spinner operating predominantly through the middle overs, where combatting attempted sweeps and reverse-sweeps is a major part of the job, it is a fascinating insight into her development as a tactician.

Economy rates of 4.05 and 5.43 in ODIs and T20Is respectively suggest that few have managed to get after Glenn with much enduring success, while 17 wickets in last year’s Women’s Big Bash – just five players were more prolific – gives further weight to that argument.

^{Sarah Glenn took 17 wickets in her first Women's Big Bash campaign}

Part of that, she insists, is because she has tried her best to remain true to herself. “I definitely have been taken down a couple of times, but what has worked for me is that I haven’t changed my plan for big scalps.

“A lot of the time, when they have dominated me, it’s been when I’ve tried too hard to get them out and changed something away from my gameplan. But if I keep it simple like I’m bowling to anyone, I feel that’s what’s most effective.

“I feel like I’ve learnt a lot about my game. I’ve had to learn how to deal with bowling under pressure. I feel like my game is still improving and there is still a lot more to improve on.”

When she spoke to The Cricketer  last summer, Glenn disclosed details of her ongoing efforts to develop a new side-spinning, slower leg-break to complement an armoury centred around an ability to deliver her stock ball at a decent pace and often targeting the stumps – more in the mould of Rashid Khan than Shane Warne, to put it in leg-spinning terms. Her challenge was for it not to become too “floaty”, as she put it. “Even though I could get more spin, it wasn’t always as accurate.”

How has that progressed? “It has come on really well and it feels like it’s just part of my game now,” she says. “Obviously, every now and then it won’t come off but it’s a good part of my game. Now, I’m just looking to move onto the next thing.”

And that attitude will stand her in good stead: an understanding that her longevity depends on refusing to stand still as others – not least the group of elite batters outlined at the top of this piece – begin to get to grips with her methods.

“Adding bits on will definitely help, but it’s also about when I use them as well,” she explains. “Using certain balls at a certain time, almost double-bluffing – I’m trying to learn how to do that so that further down the line I have a greater range of options, depending on the batter.”

^{Glenn was named player of the series when England whitewashed West Indies last summer}

Another feature of her early success has been the partnership formed with England’s other young spinners. Sophie Ecclestone is the world’s leading T20I bowler, while Mady Villiers offers a different line of attack, bringing the ball back into right-handers with her off-spin. The trio are separated by just 366 days and have developed a strong bond as the pillars of a new generation in an otherwise established team.

“I feel like we’ve just got closer and closer as the time has gone on,” says Glenn. “Through lockdown when we were in the bubbles, we were basically living with each other. We definitely know when we’re having bad days, when to leave each other alone and when the good days are.

“That closeness has definitely helped us to push our games because there is that healthy competition. We’re happy when each of us do well. We speak to each other all the time about the conditions, the pitch and the players. That’s how the partnership formed.”

It has been particularly significant since the pandemic’s intervention. Glenn’s parents flew to Kuala Lumpur to watch her international debut against Pakistan and then onto Australia for a tri-series and the subsequent T20 World Cup. But almost 18 months on from her England bow, she is still yet to play in front of spectators on home soil.

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There was a cruel irony, then, in Glenn ending last summer as player of the series against West Indies at Derby – her local ground, but with her loved ones unable to offer their support despite living only a matter of miles down the road.

“I actually found it quite hard,” she reflects. “Having grown up playing there and training there, there was that feeling of comfort that helped me. But what did make it difficult was that my family and friends were 15 minutes away from me, but I couldn’t see them.

“That’s what made it hard but also what made my performances really special and like it meant something. That’s not to say that the others didn’t, but the fact that I was at my home ground gave me that bit of comfort. Even though they couldn’t see me, my family wasn’t far away.”

All being well, that will change in the coming days and weeks. As for that list of big wickets, it will only grow and grow.