Eng vs NZ, 1st T20I – ‘More the merrier’ for Sarah Glenn as England thrive with four-spin attack

“The more the merrier, I love it,” Glenn said. “Linsey has just been consistently performing for a really long period of time now, especially in the powerplay, at the death, and we all just bring something so different and I just felt it was really effective, so it was nice to see us all come together.”

“It doesn’t really change much,” Glenn added. “You’ve just got an extra opinion, which is actually quite nice. If there’s a couple of spinners that might be struggling or anything like that, or you just want some advice, you’ve just got more people to speak to, and we obviously all bring something different. If anything, it’s just more of a strength. We’ve got more people to talk to who might be going through something I’m going through out there, so I think it’s really good.

“It’s five games as well, so we’ve got plenty of time to practice those things, but also against a top-quality team, who will put us under the pump, so I think it’s really good prep.”

“Some of them, we made it into a good effort to get there and there were quite a few dives as well,” she said. “There were some simpler catches put down, but I think the fact that we’re getting in powerful positions to give ourselves even a chance of catching those balls is really good for us. If we just keep focusing on that and our intent, it’ll put us in good situations.”

In her second England appearance of the summer, Kemp made an unbeaten 26 from 17 balls batting at No. 4 and bowled her full allocation for figures of 4-0-30-1. She bowled during England’s tour of India last December but, after a flare-up, reverted to a batting role for England A in New Zealand earlier this year, against Pakistan in May and in regional cricket.

Bates admitted that, despite best-laid plans, New Zealand had been bamboozled by England’s spinners. But she had faith in her side to counter-attack during this series, which moves to Hove on Tuesday.

“They’ve got such a clear game-plan,” Bates said. “The powerplay, they use their swing and pace and then Ecclestone, Glenn, Dean come on and really squeeze you and we’ve talked about that, but it’s about executing in the middle. I think today we got ahead of the game slightly in the powerplay and that makes playing the spinners easy. But when you need boundaries they can bowl at the stumps and defend. So we’ve got to be brave to take them on, whether that’s behind the wicket or in front of the wicket and just keep being aggressive.

“They’ve probably got one of the best spinning attacks in the world, Ecclestone leading from the front, and when you’ve got an off-spinner, a leg-spinner – Glenny, and Linsey they added today, there’s some world-class players so they’re obviously tough through the middle. If we can keep taking the game on and keep backing our shots, I think we are going to be able to get them in trouble at some point in the series.”