So much has seemed to come so naturally to Alice Capsey since she first lit up The Hundred as a 16-year-old two summers ago, that it is almost heartening to hear that her freakish sporting talent is yet to translate quite so seamlessly to the golf course.
“I’m at the stage where I actually hate it,” she laughs. “I’ve only recently started playing, so I’m not very good. But I’m determined I’m going to get better so I can play on tour with Heather [Knight] and Sophie [Ecclestone].”
The two-week break between the conclusion of an epic Women’s Ashes and the start of The Hundred has allowed time for a few rounds, but Capsey says she is “still on edge” having played a central part in what so nearly became one of sport’s greatest comeback stories.
Trailing 6-0 in the multi-format series, Knight’s team won four of the five remaining white-ball matches to come agonisingly close to winning back the Ashes, an 8-8 draw enough for Australia, the holders and serial world champions, to retain.
“We almost felt a bit hard done by,” Capsey said. “We won two out of the three series, we won more games than them but they've retained the Ashes.
“But I think this is the start of a really exciting journey for us. I look back and go: 'Wow, that was an amazing series to be part of'. As my first Ashes series, I couldn't have expected anything more.”
Capsey’s 46 off just 23 balls at Lord’s gave England a 2-1 series victory in the T20 leg, their first in any format against Australia in six years, and marked a timely return to form for the teenager, who had made just 17 runs in five T20 innings.
That carried into the ODI series when, promoted to No3, Capsey made another swaggering 40 at Bristol to set up the record run chase that, at the time, levelled the Ashes at 6-6.
“Sometimes I’ll come off, sometimes I won’t,” she adds. “That’s what I need to learn, to take better options. I’ve still got so much learning and developing to do in my game that I am going to go through those lean spells. The key is not to doubt my ability.”
For all the talk of Capsey’s precocious emergence, the previous six months had been a challenge. The 18-year-old suffered a broken collarbone while fielding on the tour of the West Indies just before Christmas and then a back problem that ruled her out for a month at the start of the domestic season.
“My run-up to the Ashes wasn’t ideal and that probably did have an impact on where I was mentally,” she says. “I probably wasn't in my most confident state.
This is the start of a really exciting journey for England... as my first Ashes series, I couldn’t have expected anything more
"I had a net the day before [the Lord’s game] for about an hour, just working on my plans a bit more and that's where the growing had to be done, knowing when to take the options and if the risk is too high. I think in that innings I got it spot on.”
The all-rounder is back at the venue she has made her playground on Wednesday afternoon as Oval Invincibles start their Hundred campaign against London Spirit.
"I don't really know what it is about Lord’s,” says Capsey, whose breakout half-century in The Hundred in 2021 came on the same ground. “I actually find batting out there quite hard but it seems to work, something seems to click. I love playing in the big games and the big moments.”
With Invincibles targeting a third successive women’s title, there could be plenty of those to come.
