England all-rounder Charlie Dean is happy to be putting her name back in the spotlight for the right reasons after the sideshow of her controversial dismissal at Lord’s in September.
Dean was run out backing up at the non-striker’s end by India’s Deepti Sharma in the final game of the domestic summer programme, concluding the match but kicking off a heated debate that lasted for days and went global.
The 21-year-old acted with good grace in the moment and good humour 24 hours later, when she pretended to go for a so-called ‘Mankad’ of her own in the Rachael Heyhoe-Flint final, but admitted she had been impacted by the incident.
A couple of months on and she is generating interest for her performances on tour in the West Indies, taking seven wickets in the 3-0 ODI sweep, and following with three for 22 in her first full T20 appearance.
Speaking from Barbados, where England will be looking to keep their 100 per cent record in the Caribbean with a series-clinching win in the third T20, she recalled: “Initially it did affect me to be honest, as a cricketer you want to be known for performances, not something like a type of dismissal.
“When that initially happened, it brought up quite a few emotions for me. It’s a legal dismissal but potentially not the way I would have gone about getting the last wicket.
“I managed to have a nice holiday afterwards. I’m not on Twitter or anything like that, but a couple of my friends were telling me how big it was getting on there. I’m quite grateful I couldn’t really see any of that stuff.
“But we’ve all put it to bed and moved on in this dressing room and I’m looking forward to further performances and making a name for myself in that way.”
That job is already well under way in the 50-over format, where only team-mate Sophie Ecclestone and South Africa’s Shabnim Ismail took more than her 29 wickets in 2022, but she has had to wait her turn for opportunities in the 20-over game.
There, Ecclestone’s established partnership with leg-spinner Sarah Glenn is proving tough to break ahead of February’s T20 World Cup.
“With Eccles and Sarah, the number one and two bowlers in the ICC rankings, it’s hard to break in as a spinner really,” she said.
“I believe I could be good enough to be in the XI, but there’s two really great performers in front of me. I guess that’s my next challenge.”
