Sarah Taylor has admitted England need to be sharper in the field if they are to win the Women’s World Twenty20 in Bangladesh, after slipping to a nine-run defeat in the opening contest against West Indies.
England recovered from a slow start, which saw West Indies race reach the 13th over without losing a wicket, to restrict their opponents to 133 for seven.
But, despite Taylor and Charlotte Edwards putting on 42 in five overs, Deandra Dottin’s four-wicket haul helped spark a mid-order collapse that left England’s tail with too much to do to secure victory.
Nevertheless, Taylor is confident England can iron out their flaws in the remainder of the tournament.
She told ecb.co.uk: “You could probably say we were there for about 20 overs of the game. They started well, we started quite badly and then we did very well to pull it back.
“And then we started well with the bat but the game seemed to get away from us a bit. It’s something we’re going to look to address and then hopefully we can bounce back quickly.
“I think it was more the fielding side of things (that let us down). I personally dropped catches, missed a stumping, and there was another couple of catches (missed), and a couple of misfields on the boundary.
“We’re going to have to learn from it. We’re going to have to take all the positives we can from it.
“With the ball I think we did absolutely brilliantly. The position they were in, I think they were looking at 160-odd at one point, so to claw them back was really good. I just think we’re going to have to bounce back quickly.”
Taylor was pleased with how debutant Rebecca Grundy performed on her Twenty20 International debut. Grundy took 1-20, with the wicket of Shemaine Campbelle coming in her final over.
“I said to her I’d take that on my debut, especially against West Indies, who are big hitters of the ball,” said Taylor.
“The 20 runs off her four overs was a brilliant effort.”
Skipper Edwards was disappointed with the showing but was quick to stress that there is a lot more cricket to be played in Bangladesh.
“It’s disappointing but in tournament cricket we have to forget about this game quite quickly and move on because we can’t do much (about this) now,” she said.
“Credit to Deandra, she bowled a great spell, but we should have chased down that score. We’ll learn from this and take the positives.”
England have the opportunity to bounce back on Wednesday when they face India in their second group match.