Facing up: England legend Katherine Brunt opens up on her remarkable journey and the thought of retirement

NICK FRIEND talks to the England bowler about how the women's game has changed and how she almost left the game as a teenager

It is sixteen years now since Katherine Brunt made her international debut in a Test against New Zealand. She is still going now, 275 wickets and 219 games later.

With an unusual summer in store for a great of the women's game, she tells Nick Friend about a fortuitous beginning, the person she has become, the thought of retirement, how the sport has changed and why she believes The Hundred represents a huge moment for women's cricket in England.

Having almost left the game as a teenager, how proud are you of the person you’ve become?

I chose a very different route. I can’t speak for everyone but I know that most went through a domestic structure or an England trial or an England academy. I didn’t do any of that. I went for a random indoor trial once at Trent Bridge for England to get into the under-16 squad.

I was 14 and just playing for Yorkshire and Sheffield, my club. At that same trial were Isa Guha, Jenny Gunn, Lydia Greenway. I had never seen them play before, so I didn’t know what quality they were.

But when I got there the camp was so bad. The girls were great but I was so introverted and shy. The coaches were effing and blinding and trying to catch us out. It just felt like it was some sort of bootcamp – it was a really horrible experience.

And for someone who was already sick of being bullied daily, it pretty much put me off for life from ever taking the next step. I came out of that camp crying and my dad picked me up. I just went: “Don’t ever take me there again.” That was the end of me wanting to play for England.

I then just went back to club and county cricket. Then Paul Shaw – who became England coach for a couple of years – was doing his Level Two coaching course and he said that he wanted to use me as his person to coach to get his certificate.

We had a really good relationship and he saw something in me that he thought could go further. He tried to get me to play higher and I’d say: “I’m not sure Paul. I had a really bad experience.” But I had grown up a little bit – he did say that a couple of people who had been in that set-up had gone by then.

When I was 18 or 19 there was a County Champs weekend – I think Sussex beat us in the final, so they got to play against the travelling New Zealand squad. I watched that after and my sister was there. I think one of the England bowlers went down injured.

Clare Connor, the captain, asked for a list of seamers in the county set-up who the selectors had their eye on. I was on that list; she came up to me that day and asked if I wanted to play in the New Zealand Test a couple of weeks later. I said no. I said that I had V Festival tickets and I wasn’t going to miss that. I was kind of just saying that, but I didn’t want to play because I hated the whole shebang.

Then Clare walked away and my sister just said to me: “What the hell are you doing?” And I was like: “What? I don’t want to play for them. I’d rather go to the festival with you.” She just said: “You don’t understand what you’ve just done.”

And she went: “I know you can’t see past how put off you are and you just want to be young and stubborn, but I’m telling you now, Katherine, that you will regret what you’ve just done for the rest of your life.” And she said: “Go back and just say that you will, please.”

I went back and said I’d play, so I played that Test match and my first ever wicket was Rebecca Rolls, who at the time was the best keeper/batter in the world. I didn’t realise the extent of what I’d done – I was just playing cricket.

It didn’t feel a big occasion. But literally from that first week with the girls, I realised what a big mistake I’d made up until then, and I’ve never looked back. I’ve loved every single minute of it – I’m very grateful to my sister, and I did eventually go to a V Festival!

How much do you remember of your Test debut against New Zealand – 16 years ago and a decade before central contracts?

I found a picture the other day where I looked about 12 and I had a pony with a plat and then a pony again. That was the way that I wore my hair for my very first Test. You’d get laughed off the pitch now. The kit that we had was completely oversized – I used to wear some of it to bed sometimes because it was like a nightie.

It was so big because it was all the men’s stuff that got passed down to us. Just by that, a lot has changed. It was hard enough to get kit. Now, we have our own women’s clothing range. To get four or five sets per tour of women’s clothing and to have a say in the design is absolutely unreal.

^{Brunt celebrates a wicket in a T20I against Australia in 2005}

I was so young and innocent and naïve, I think. I was the quietest one when I turned up – I was always quite respectful to everyone because that was the old school way. You kept your head down and you did what others said.

I was always polite and did all the grunt work, giving people throwdowns. That was kind of my role, and I was happy to do that. I didn’t want to be loud and out there and noticed too much. I just wanted to be playing cricket, doing my thing and not really being in the spotlight.

I didn’t really like that, especially from my childhood. I avoided being noticed because when you did that bad things happened at school and stuff like that. My personality has been a 360-degree transformation. Now I’m actually the joker in the team and probably the loudest there! I wouldn’t change it for the world. You learn so much in both those personalities about who you are and what you’re capable of.

Have the retirements in recent years of Charlotte Edwards, Jenny Gunn, Laura Marsh and Sarah Taylor made you aware of your own longevity? You dismissed Lisa Keightley – now head coach – on your T20I debut in 2005!

Lisa is hardball, she’s old-school. If she’s not happy about something she’ll let you know about it. She’s the type of person to get the best out of you – you respect her that much. It’s like the puppy with its owner – you just want to impress her.

And then you’ve got Clare, who almost feels like a mother figure to me – but I did play with her and now she’s the director of the establishment I work in. It is all very strange and it’s only in the last year or so that I feel old. I’m the last one left; if they’ve all been gone this long, Christ, how long have I been going? I’m really happy for how they’ve turned their careers outside of cricket into something really special.

When Laura, Sarah and Jenny moved on, it was like a smash in the face. I had another smash in the face a few years back when Nicky Shaw, Isa Guha and Ebony Rainford-Brent disappeared. They were my three best mates.

It went from being on holiday and fun and being young and daft with your mates to being serious and a job and turning up and every day is hard to then earning that back again to then having my next three best mates go.

I was like, if they’re gone, what am I doing? Am I supposed to retire? Those three are gone and I’m older than them. Is this my time? You can never put a number on it because there are so many things you factor in.

The most important factor for me is when I don’t feel that I can play to a good enough ability, I will stop. I don’t want to embarrass myself. I’m a proud person and I couldn’t let that happen to me, even if I still love it. Because I can’t see myself not loving it, you see.

Have you started imagining what life without representing England might look like?

I’ve had that happen to me during this lockdown. I got sick early on. After about two weeks I started to feel run down and I had this horrific cough and it was so bad. I couldn’t sleep more than two hours a night, I was properly choking myself having these coughing fits. It was horrible. The doctor said he was 99 per cent sure it was the virus.

I started training when I got the all-clear. Before I could play a game again I have to build up my strength, fitness and my cricket skills. I’ve not played any cricket since I got back from the World Cup. I’m definitely going to aim for the September series. I’m basically on for that now; all being well, we should be fine.

Being ill, I’ve not been able to touch a bat or a ball for three months. That’s the longest I’ve gone in 20 years without doing that. It’s like: ‘This is what it would be like. This is what my body would feel like, what my mind would feel like.’ It feels good and I feel happy about it, but then you get to the third month and you start missing it again.

^{Brunt during the 2010 World Cup}

Every time someone retires I do feel jealous – wouldn’t it be nice not to be told what to do anymore? Wouldn’t it be nice not to have to get up and go to the gym, rest and then go to the gym again? Wouldn’t it be nice not to have to bowl 30 overs this week and feel like death at the end of the week? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to go on holiday when I want, to see my family, to watch my nieces and nephews grow up? All these things flash in front of my face every few months.

But there has been a conversation along the lines of: ‘Would you like to play in the Commonwealth Games?’ I mean, you ask anyone that and they’re going to say yes. Given the opportunity I’d love to be a part of it. That’s another two years down the line – can I do that?

I’ll be edging closer to 40 as a seamer. But that carrot has been dangled and I am someone who, given a challenge, I’m going to do it. If the challenge is against you, I’ll beat you.

When the next version of me or a better version comes along, I will say bye-bye. I do feel precious about this team and this legacy. I don’t want to leave them vulnerable and not in the top three in the world. I honestly feel sometimes that if I walked away they wouldn’t be in a good place.

Has that attachment to this team increased through your fiancée, Nat Sciver, also being such a fundamental part of the side? 

It has made it a lot harder to walk away from, for sure. I was away from October until March just now; had it not been for Covid-19, we’d now be back into camp and a series right now. It can be eight months away from your home each year.

If I didn’t play anymore I wouldn’t see Nat for eight months of the year unless I chose a job within that side of it. It is a massive part of why I choose to carry on playing – my best friend in Amy Jones and my partner in Nat are there.

When you look back at the way in which the women’s game has changed, how grateful are you to have been part of this era?

I never ever thought in a million years that I’d be part of the set-up as it is now. And then, The Hundred. These carrots that keep being dangled, I keep thinking I’d like a year of that: the Big Bash, the IPL, The Hundred, the Commonwealth Games – all of these landmarks. They’re so hard to say no to. It’s something different – you tell yourself that you have to be a part of it, even if it’s just once. How can you not?

Playing cricket in India is mental. As was the Big Bash. You just want to experience what other people do and see what the shoe is like on the other foot. Australia, at one stage, were like a decade ahead of us – the facilities, the treatment, the money. We’ve closed that gap now but it was so great to experience.

I’ve been playing for 16 years, but I’ve only had a pension made for me in the last four. The girls now are having pensions from the start of their careers.

By the time that Nat’s finished, she’ll have had a 16-year pension behind her. There are so many things I could be bitter about, but then I could also have been brought into the previous generation and got a high-five and a stump at the end of it.

I don’t want to be one of those people who are bitter or let the youngsters know how grateful they should be.

I look back at the lifelong friends I’ve made and the daft things that Danni Wyatt might have done in India one time or the hotel we stayed in on my first trip abroad or the security things that have happened to us in South Africa. These are the things you remember most fondly – not the pay you were given or the trophies you won.

^{Brunt celebrates her first wicket against West Indies in this strange summer of 2020}

What has it been like to have come into a side where there was very little coverage and now be where the women’s game is, with 86,000 turning up for a T20 World Cup final? Do you ever feel ‘famous’?

I’m so far away from social media. I have to force myself to sit down and do it – it takes me about half an hour. I’m really crap at that, but I also don’t like that it takes away from the life that you’re living right now. I don’t want to waste time doing that right now; I want to be present in the moment and private.

The support side of it has been really overwhelming. I would never say that any of us are famous – not in a million years. I think Sarah Taylor achieved that a little bit just by how loved she was in India; if she’d lived in India she’d have been one of the most famous people there. But in terms of England, she could walk down the street any day she wants and no one would know who she is.

So in terms of that, that never really was a factor either because of the lack of coverage. No one would know who we are because our games were never on or were never written about. Obviously, there’s a much bigger opportunity for that now, which is great.

Remember when the TV presenters were putting their wages online? Let’s say Holly Willoughby was being paid half of Phil Schofield. It would be an outrage. We were getting one to three per cent of the men’s wage. But by the same token, we were not advertised enough to then put a show on for people to pay for. We weren’t bringing any money in, so we had no leg to stand on.

These are the things you could be bitter about but it’s just the way the world works. Sometimes I felt like we were just around because there needed to be a female side to everything for there to be equality. That sounds drastic but sometimes that’s what it felt like.

But that’s gone full circle now. I feel part of something now. For instance, The Hundred – we were at all the same media events, we’ve been covered in equal amounts on social media, on TV and in the press. Any functions or photoshoots, we were there with the men alongside our team-mates.

Joe Root was the captain of the male version of our team – he’s wearing the same kit, the same training kit. We actually felt part of one club, one team. If you look at the pay gaps, it’s a lot less. It just makes you feel like you’re worth something and part of something. That was never how we were allowed to feel.

How significant is The Hundred for the women’s game in England?

It absolutely needed it. It has brought everyone together. For us it couldn’t be any better. It’s something that’s needed within the women’s game. Our entire domestic structure is unknown, whereas now you will learn about the next best star and you won’t have to have us tell you. It will be there in front of you.

It’s a massive opportunity for them, so it brings us closer to them too, which in turn helps us mentor them and get them to that next stage, which is where we need them to be for the future of England cricket and for us to get better.

What has it meant to play for England for the past 16 years?

It’s quite surreal, really. When I’ve spoken to Lisa about how this might come to an end quite soon I do get extremely emotional because it’s not just a game for me. In the beginning it was a hobby and a way to bond with my dad and my brother, which I was desperate to do.

It has become my whole life and all my memories and sacrifices are shaped around cricket. It’s going to be one of the hardest things to ever let go of, but equally it will be something that no one can ever take away from me.

It’s awesome that I’ve lasted as long as I have. It’s nice to prove people wrong and to create something that I’m really proud of. And I still have the opportunity to do it for a little bit longer. The opportunity to play in the World Cup in New Zealand next year is definitely my biggest drive at the minute.

Super Over

Favourite film?

Lord of the Rings (above). My brother got me into it as a kid.

If you could invite three people to dinner?

Someone funny – Ricky Gervais is pretty funny, I’ve been watching him on TV recently. Probably Beyonce. And someone awesome like Michael Jordan, because I’ve been watching The Last Dance through lockdown.

Favourite takeaway?

This has changed over the years. When I was in Australia I couldn’t get enough of sushi, so I’ll say Japanese.

This article was published in the July edition of The Cricketer - the home of the best cricket analysis and commentary, covering the international, county, women's and amateur game

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