Lisa Keightley took the England job; then the world changed

NICK FRIEND - EXCLUSIVE: Last January, Lisa Keightley became England Women's head coach. Here, after a year of unprecedented challenges, she opens up on her fears for the women's game, a unique summer and the impact of the domestic revamp

Lisa Keightley is home now, back in the company of her fiancée for the first time in a long while.

After a journey fraught with uncertainty, they were able to spend Christmas together – a triumph in itself, given the difficulties around re-entering Perth in the current climate. Flights were cancelled and, at one stage, Keightley had resigned herself to the thought that she wouldn’t get back.

“A rollercoaster,” she called it – an appropriate way to bookend a year that began with her appointment as England Women’s first female full-time head coach. Three months later, the world changed.

“When I took the job, I didn’t think I wouldn’t see my partner for seven months; she was going to come over in the summer and then I was going to come back when we had a break,” Keightley tells The Cricketer.

“It’s been great having a holiday now and getting back. I still can’t go to New South Wales to see my mum, dad and brothers because of borders, so it’s a funny old time. But we’ve got through it and we’re thinking positively that things will change moving forward.

“If you take an international job, you know that there are going to be some sacrifices unfortunately. We spoke about that up-front and we decided we were going to go for it.”

Safe to say, little has gone to plan since those discussions: there was a tri-series with Australia and India as her first assignment, followed a month later by a T20 World Cup, before cricket stopped.

And for the women’s game, the halt has been stark: all impetus burst; memories of a jampacked MCG now evocations of a distant past; a 50-over World Cup supposedly just four weeks away instead delayed by 12 months.

Having devoted her life to the sport, the plight of the last nine months disturbs Keightley as much as she was excited by the progress that preceded this uncertainty. Where the rise of Thailand was used pre-pandemic as a reason for optimism, the narrative since has been based on a fear that others might now have had their momentum quashed.

Likewise, the T20 World Cup saw improvements among more established cricketing nations, whose women’s sides had previously lagged behind: Sri Lanka beat England in a pre-tournament warmup game, while Pakistan swept past West Indies in the group stage. Neither have played since, though Pakistan are soon to face South Africa.

^{Lisa Keightley replaced Mark Robinson as England Women's head coach}

“From where women’s cricket has come and how competitive it is – I was looking at the 50-over World Cup draw and I was like: ‘Gosh, there are no easy games anymore,’” says Keightley.

“With everyone, you’ve got to be on it or it’s so easy to lose. And I’d hate for that to fall away because of a lack of funds to be able to play the women’s fixtures. I am a little bit concerned moving forward for what it looks like if it continues on for another season.”

She well understands the privileges of her England team and is full of praise for the ECB – principally chief executive Tom Harrison, managing director of women’s cricket Clare Connor and director of England Women’s cricket Jonathan Finch. Barring the initial period “when all of the world was locked down”, Keightley and her players were able to continue working together.

“I’m not sure how many other countries have been able to train like we have,” she admits. “I do worry about the game.

“Realistically, in 12 months, England, West Indies, Australia and New Zealand are the only female teams that have played, so it is really tough. The summer could have been so much worse. We feel very fortunate to have played and grateful that the West Indies came.

“It would have been really easy for them to say: ‘Look, it’s too hard; the girls haven’t got enough overs in or haven’t done any physical exercise.’ We owe the West Indies big-time. To have done what they’ve done and for us to get some games on, I feel like we got something out of the summer really.”

There is more than a tinge of relief to Keightley’s voice as she reflects on it all. A five-match T20I series played out in Derby – behind closed doors amid the arrival of a bitter autumnal chill – might not sound like much, but it came as the ECB railed against a diminishing sense of time and options.

India and South Africa both withdrew from scheduled tours, while the 50-over World Cup – initially due to begin next month – was pushed back into a busy 2022, which also features a Commonwealth Games debut for women’s cricket and a return to Australia for the Women’s Ashes. Next year’s T20 World Cup has been postponed until 2023 in an attempt to ease a pile-up that currently feels a long way off after so much uncertainty.

"What the domestic structure is going to do is giving them the opportunity to have that dream of still playing for their country and wearing the shirt"

South Africa’s withdrawal was especially taxing for England’s players as the burden of bubble life fought with a growing fear that it might all be for nothing. “You’re thinking: ‘Why are we here? What are we training for?’” Kate Cross told The Cricketer in August.

“I was gutted for the players,” adds Keightley, “so it was a bit of a surreal time. To be totally honest, training the next day was really flat. But considering they’d just been told that the World Cup was off and we’d just been told we might not be playing any team in the summer, you’d expect it to be pretty flat – because they’re athletes, they’re competitors and they want to play.

“It was a tough 48 hours, especially as a coach. You know, you try to keep people up and focused. But how do you keep a team focused when you’ve been told you’ve got no summer and, by the way, that 50-over World Cup is another 16 months away?”

The news of West Indies’ visit, therefore, was an important moment: a light at the end of the tunnel.

But life in the bio-secure abyss of the Incora County Ground was difficult, and Keightley is at her most thoughtful in reflecting on the personal and pastoral challenges of the team’s confinement. “With training, you don’t just rock up anymore. You arrive 15 minutes early, you get a Covid test and then you basically find out if you can train. Once you’ve trained, you basically go straight back to your hotel and then the next day straight back to the training ground.”

Sports psychologist Phoebe Sanders “took a lot of the load if people were having a bad day and struggling”, while it remained Keightley’s job – in a wholly alien environment – to bring everyone together.

As an Australian living 9,000 miles from her partner, the experience and its intricacies were different.

“We don’t have family or partners in England, so being in the bubble for us was like being around people and being with our family,” she says, speaking too for Tim MacDonald, her assistant and compatriot.

“Our family are our staff and our players in England – because once we leave the bubble, we don’t have much outside. I think for me personally, it probably wasn’t as hard as for some other staff and players because they have family and kids who they’re not seeing for week upon week.”

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She abbreviated the monotony of her spare time with a mixture of television series, podcasts, books and conversation about things other than cricket. “We got to know each other really well,” she adds – an unanticipated positive for a coach in her first summer with a new team.

“I will say something though: I think bubbles are easier for introverted people who don’t mind spending time by themselves. I think if you’re an extrovert, it’s tough. You don’t have that energy that you crave: going out to meet someone for a coffee or dinner or catching up with whoever.

“I think it’s harder for extroverts; I look at someone like Danni Wyatt. She loves interacting and seeing new people and having a chat. Even Heather Knight, she loves exploring, climbing up a mountain or going out with a mate and tasting a nice craft beer. I think it’s a lot harder for extroverts than introverts, and I think bubbles are a lot harder for players that don’t play and are on the bench, not playing any cricket.

“The girls that were sat on our bench, they just kept training, being in a bubble and sacrificing. They did incredibly well but it was definitely harder when it came to missing out on selection.”

For the vast majority of the series, England fielded the same side, with Sophia Dunkley replacing Fran Wilson for the final two games, Freya Davies coming in for Anya Shrubsole for the last match and Wilson returning to replace Wyatt, who left the bubble for personal reasons.

It meant that Cross, Lauren Winfield-Hill and Katie George went without cricket, as well as Bryony Smith and Linsey Smith, who were both with the squad on standby. Ultimately, Keightley was left with an unenviable decision: rotation would have been understandable in the circumstances, but instead England opted for strength as they sought to make up for lost time.

“It was really tough because everyone has missed a lot of cricket,” she explains. “We only had five games and, at that stage, you want to play your best team and see where you can go.

“In a normal summer, it might be the case that you can make sure you’re building your depth and you’ve got people to replace people if they were to get injured in big competitions, and then you’ve got a really good squad where everyone is confident in performance because they’ve had some game-time.

“That was the balance and I suppose that was the hardest thing of this summer: we only had five games. We’d just come off a World Cup and no one had played any cricket, so that was tough.”

^{England won all five T20Is against West Indies}

And for the same reason, it feels difficult to judge players on their summer returns, having spent so much time in cricketing purgatory, wondering what might become of the international season. Wyatt, for example, managed just 42 runs across her four appearances.

“It was an extremely challenging year mentally for players,” says Keightley. “Some people didn’t see their partners for weeks. Some went straight over to the Big Bash, so they were out for two days and then gone for another two months, so you’ve got four months and you’re seeing your partner twice. That’s not what you want.

“Every player loves playing in front of a crowd and we’ve got a number of players who feed off that and get up for it. So, from that perspective, for them it was quite challenging to get up for the occasion.

“And that might sound quite weird, but a lot of the England men spoke about not knowing how they’d go, playing in an empty stadium.”

For one, Stuart Broad admitted to relying on psychologist David Young ahead of his Test summer in order to “train his brain” to treat the empty grounds and eerie atmospheres as normal scenarios.

Keightley points, too, to the example of Sarah Glenn, England’s “fantastic” star of 2020 and playing her first international cricket on home soil, having made her debut in Kuala Lumpur before impressing at the T20 World Cup. Derby-born and raised, this should have been an emotional homecoming, played out in front of a full house at a ground she knows well. Instead, Glenn was named player of the series without any fanfare.

“You play cricket for memories and moments, and a lot of those that you hold fondly are when you’ve got family and friends there,” says Keightley. “You can’t tell me that most of Sarah’s cricket club wouldn’t have been singing and chanting. And her family would have been there. That moment is missed. I think you miss out on memories by being a bit isolated in a venue with no crowds.”

At least there was cricket, however – and not only internationally. In amongst it all, plans for a major domestic revamp went ahead, with the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy emerging from the rubble of an otherwise decimated summer.

"I really see the domestic competitions in England giving platforms to players that are maybe a bit older. But if they're performing, you can always get picked"

Commitments were made and promises kept – so much so that Harrison could look back with some pride in September on “a net positive” for the women’s game. Eight new regional hubs, each with head coaches and directors of cricket, were formed, while retainer deals were given to 25 players in June. As of early December, 41 women now hold professional contracts as full-time domestic cricketers – a game-changer where Keightley is concerned.

Having previously coached England Women’s Academy, before returning to Australia to lead Western Fury and Perth Scorchers, she has witnessed first-hand the upshot of professionalisation in her own country, with the proof in the pudding of a dominant, record-breaking national side.

“I’ve seen the impact of domestic players being full-time and how quickly they can improve,” she stresses. “I’ve seen that happen very well in Australia. To have eight competitive teams at the top level, I have no doubt that people will perform and the pool of players will get bigger. It will get harder to select squads and teams in England, which is really exciting. Players will put up their hands through The Hundred and the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy, and that is fantastic. That’s what you want to happen.”

She leans on the example of Ashleigh Gardner, the Australian allrounder, who emerged from nowhere and has since become a mainstay in Meg Lanning’s team.

“Until the Women’s Big Bash came around, she wasn’t playing 50-over cricket for New South Wales,” Keightley recalls. “They split into two teams, all of a sudden she’s playing for Sydney Sixers and she has an opportunity to perform. Within 18 months, she was playing for Australia. There are so many more domestic cricketers who can get selected through those competitions because they’re a great standard.

“I have no doubt it will be really exciting for England players that have moved through the system and haven’t made it. The domestic competitions in place now give them that opportunity to not be forgotten.”

It is no secret that county players have previously felt powerless to land an opportunity in England’s national pool, especially those who miss out on pathway places. Sonia Odedra, who featured just once at international level in 2014, was the last player to make her England debut past the age of 25.

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“The structures haven’t really enabled players to break through at an older age and I think that’s where this huge change will come,” Northern Diamonds seamer Phoebe Graham, 29, told The Cricketer in December.

“Over here, would we pick a 30-year-old who’s in form? I’m unsure,” added former England allrounder Jenny Gunn. “Now, with these new competitions, if someone’s in form in and around an England series, there probably is more chance for the right people to get in.”

Breaking down this barrier and altering perceptions is high among Keightley’s priorities. For those who previously felt they had missed the boat, the message is clear: that is no longer the case.

Keightley reflects: “There is no doubt – even when I was coaching the England Academy team – that players felt like if they hadn’t played for England by the time they were through the academy programme, that was it and they would never play for England.

“I have no doubt that the players still feel that if you don’t get picked in an academy or a programme, then that’s your international chance gone. What the domestic structure and giving people the opportunity to be full-time and get better is going to do is giving them the opportunity to have that dream of still playing for their country and wearing the shirt.

“You don’t necessarily have to be in an England programme to be able to do that; if you’re performing in a competition, you’ve got a great chance to be selected for your country.”

It is a powerful, important statement as England’s domestic game travels through the first winter of its new era. Once again, Keightley looks closer to home for hard evidence – this time in the shape of Erin Burns, a debutante for Australia at 31.

“Erin Burns is a typical Georgia Adams, Beth Langston, Tash Farrant – you can rattle them all off – that has been through a system and had the opportunity to play in really world-class domestic competitions, performs and then gets picked for Australia,” she explains.

^{Georgia Adams dominated the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy with the bat}

“I really see the domestic competitions in England doing the same thing, giving platforms to players that are maybe a bit older. But if they’re performing, you can always get picked. It bodes well. What England hasn’t had in the past – I know they had county competition – but they haven’t had the opportunity of eight teams, all good quality, all with full-time athletes.

“It’s a real easy transition from there – if you’re performing – to move up to play international cricket.”

The impact has already shown: Adams struck 500 runs at an average of 83.33 as Southern Vipers won the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy, and, last month, she told The Cricketer: “I would be lying if I said [England] wasn’t on my radar. I’m trying not to think about it too much, but I’m aware that I won’t be able to do too much more to break in than I’ve done in the last couple of years.”

Keightley was in touch via text with Adams during the competition, congratulating her on a century against Western Storm. She sent similar messages to others, and the main aim of those communications was to demonstrate that performances at regional level were not going unnoticed. “I was always watching,” she laughs.

She made it to games in person during the early rounds of the competition when her England charges were involved, while watching the others through live streams once under lock and key in Derby. Not yet familiar with all the options potentially at her disposal, she too is learning on the job. “The coaches talk about players, but it’s great to put a name to a face and watch them perform.”

Ultimately, of course, she will be judged on results. In a curious sense, then, there were major benefits to the summer as it was – not least the rare opportunity it provided for a solid block of training, where Keightley was able to lay down her philosophy for T20 cricket. “I don’t think by any means we were perfect at it yet,” she insists, “but I definitely was really excited and saw some really good signs on the way we want to play our cricket, in terms of players buying into it and being really clear on what their roles are.”

Keightley’s reign has been characterised to this point by a push for fearless aggression and boundary-hitting from a long batting line-up. Wyatt, Tammy Beaumont and Amy Jones have all been given chances at the top of the order, with Nat Sciver shifted to No.3 and Knight – arguably England’s player of the year – enjoying a fine transformation as a T20 batsman at No.4.

Before 2020, England’s captain had only passed 50 once in T20Is; now, she has four half centuries and a hundred. Keightley insists there is no special secret to the shift in Knight’s game, only that she is reaping the rewards of her own clarity of thought.

"When I took the job, I didn't think I wouldn't see my partner for seven months"

“All I tell the batters all the time is that I want them not to miss out on their strength,” Keightley explains. “I don’t care if it’s ball one or ball hundred. If the ball’s in your strength, back yourself to execute it. That’s no different with any player.

“The only thing from looking at some statistical information with Heather going in at No.4 is that she’s our biggest boundary-striker and our biggest six-hitting batter. To have her in the middle to back end of the innings, where I’m really confident that she can clear the rope, is great for us. But other than giving her that role, it’s all been Heather. I can’t take much credit.

“I’ve just given her some statistical information to look at and have tried to get her and all the batters – if it’s in their area of strength – not to miss out.

“And let’s work really hard at getting in front of the game and knowing what’s coming in terms of match-ups. If you play Australia, they’re going to look at your statistical information and do X. So, let’s work at X. Then, when you play against Australia, they have to think on their feet because that plan isn’t working anymore. That’s with everyone.”

In the meantime, though, England’s attention can belatedly turn to ODI cricket, where an intriguing juxtaposition exists: the world champions didn’t play a single 50-over game in the calendar year of 2020 – the first time this has happened since 1994.

By extension, Keightley is yet to oversee Knight’s side in their strongest format: their most recent exploits came a month before her appointment, beating Pakistan in Malaysia.

And so, despite the frustration of the World Cup’s postponement, it at least gives the Australian a chance to roll out her blueprint. She knows better than to perform major surgery on a world-champion unit; evolution rather than revolution is the way forward.

“I suppose it’s about building on that because four years is a long time in cricket,” she says. “There’s no way you can do exactly the same as what you did four years ago. The style and the brand is moving forward really quickly.”

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She emphasises the importance of early wickets and the related need to “build more depth around our seam bowling” to complement an experienced core led by Katherine Brunt.

“And then, with the bat, we’ve got a few world-class players: Tammy Beaumont in 50-over cricket has proven herself time and again to be a match-winner, Heather Knight and Nat Sciver have been fantastic. We need to get a little bit more depth with the bat and make sure we bat as long as we can.

“I don’t know if that’s a philosophy at this stage, but we’ve done some really good research over the last six months on different areas of the game in 50-over cricket to give us some really good guidelines on where we need to be. We feel that it will win us games of cricket, so it’s a matter of rolling that out and getting the players comfortable with it, testing it and seeing where we’re at.

“I have no doubt we would have been ready for a 50-over World Cup if Covid didn’t happen. We would have had opportunity to plan accordingly, and the players were excited looking towards next year. I was confident that we would be ready.

“But all this has done for me, I suppose, having not been with the group in 50-over cricket, is to give myself a little bit more time to work with the players and to get the best out of them, so that when we get to a World Cup, everyone’s really clear on how we want to play and we’ve given the players enough opportunity to feel confident in going out to play.

“It was really hard to hear that the World Cup wouldn’t be going ahead, but now they know it’s 12 months away. It’s a bit like the Olympics – you just get on with it, train and make sure you try to peak in 12 months’ time. You just adapt, don’t you?”

And after the year that was, from the long-awaited comfort of her own home, Keightley can appreciate that better than most.