England ‘don’t have enough belief’ – Robinson

Learning to cope under pressure will be top of the agenda as England Women embark on a new era under the captaincy of Heather Knight with Mark Robinson, the head coach who has instigated dramatic change over the last few weeks, saying the team “don’t have enough belief in themselves.”

Robinson was speaking publicly for the first time since England’s World T20 exit at the hands of Australia since when he removed Charlotte Edwards as captain and told her she would not be part of his plans for the season ahead which led to her retirement from international cricket.

In the semi-final against Australia, England were 67 without loss in the tenth over before Edwards departed and they subsided to 127 for 7 to lose by five runs with Robinson saying they suffered “stage fright”. Robinson added that one of the challenges he faces is finding a way for the team to play enough high-pressure cricket to learn to cope with such situations, but while he acknowledged there was no quick fix he believes there is the talent for England to emerge as a force again.

“In the semi-final some players didn’t turn up mentally – we have to look at why and what happened. It wasn’t that we got beat but that certain players got stage fright and that’s what we have to avoid. That’s why we’ve gone back to basics,” Robinson said. “Part of that is we don’t play enough big games, the Women’s Super League will help in that, the more pressurised games we play the better, but we have to try and unravel why under pressure certain people withdraw and don’t step forward. We played Pakistan the game before and our mentality was different. The girls fundamentally don’t have enough belief in themselves; they have so much more to give and we have to support that.”

When Edwards retired she said that Robinson had indicated to …

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