Same name, same brand, new faces: Sophie Luff and Mark O'Leary lead Western Storm into new era

RACHAEL HEYHOE FLINT TROPHY PREVIEW, by SYD EGAN: The successor to the Kia Super League team of the same name, Western Storm have kept the name and the branding, but built an almost entirely fresh squad under new coach Mark O'Leary

Head coach: Mark O'Leary

Squad: Sophie Luff, Fi Morris, Danielle Gibson, Claire Nicholas, Alex Griffiths, Georgia Hennessy, Nat Wraith, Lauren Filer, Steph Hutchins, Lauren Parfitt, Emily Edgcombe, NIamh Holland, Emma Corney, Abbie Whybrow

Allocated England players: Heather Knight, Anya Shrubsole, Katie George

Fixtures: August 29 - South East Stars (a, 10.30am); August 31 - Southern Vipers (h, 10.30am); September 5 - Sunrisers (a, 10.30am); September 11 - South East Stars (a, 10.30am); September 13 - Southern Vipers (a, 10.30am); September 19 - Sunrisers (h, 10.30am)

Squad background

Based at Bristol, Western Storm are a partnership between Glamorgan, Gloucestershire, Somerset, and Wales, also covering Devon, Cornwall, and Wiltshire.

Their players hail from right across Wales and the West Country, and the only member of the squad not currently playing county cricket in the area - Hampshire’s Fi Morris - is nonetheless a Bristolian who studied at Exeter University in Devon.

What do I need to know?

The successor to the Kia Super League team of the same name, Western Storm have kept the name and the branding, but built an almost entirely fresh squad under new coach Mark O'Leary.

Only two of the side that lifted the 2019 KSL trophy on Finals Day at Hove less than a year ago remain - batter Sophie Luff and off-spinner Claire Nicholas - plus a couple more who were on the bench that day.

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Who are the star names?

Western Storm are led by West Country native Sophie Luff who, since her Women’s County Championship debut for Somerset in 2010, has scored over 3,500 championship runs at an average of 45, including five centuries and 17 fifties.

Luff’s deputy is Fi Morris - a bowling allrounder who brings economical off-spin and useful late middle-order runs. Morris made her name for Berkshire 2013 between 2017, before moving to Hampshire in 2018, where she was part of the team that won the Women’s County Championship that year, taking 15 wickets.

Their final “pro” is 19-year-old seamer Danielle Gibson - a product of the Western Storm KSL pipeline, who is in the process of making a comeback having missed most of 2019 through injury.

Youngsters to look out for

As well as Danielle Gibson, the Storm boast three more players currently on England’s elite Women’s Academy program: Lauren Filer, a 19-year-old seamer whose twin sister Jodie also plays for Somerset; Somerset wicketkeeper-batsman Nat Wraith; and last but not least, Alex Griffiths, a seamer and middle-order batter from Wales.

Griffiths, who had also been selected for the Welsh Fire in The Hundred before the competition fell foul of the pandemic, was reportedly “spotted” by then-coach Claire Nicholas as an eight-year-old and catapulted into the Wales age-group squads: a decade later, with the pair set to take the field as teammates in this new professional competition, it looks like a pretty good call.

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