STILL FUNKY, STILL DIFFERENT! – Alison Mitchell previews the T20 World Cup

Ace cricket commentator Alison Mitchell tells Helen M Jerome what to expect* and who to watch out for in the upcoming T20 World Cup across England. As well as explaining the tournament’s importance and significance for many competing nations.

Anyone who loves cricket knows Alison Mitchell. For them she has National Treasure status. You hear her voice everywhere, as our own, homegrown, leading female cricket commentator.

She has travelled to every Test-playing nation to cover England teams for various broadcasters, including BBC Radio 5 Live and Test Match Special. Not to mention cricket shows and podcasts, as well as writing for the Wisden Almanac. And she loves the T20 format.

Now Mitchell has the enviable job of commentating throughout the upcoming T20 World Cup, taking place all around England, from Bristol and Southampton to Edgbaston, Headingley and Old Trafford, and of course, at Lord’s and the Oval. So she marks our cards as we look ahead to a barnstorming contest from June 12 to July 5. (*Spoiler alert: almost anyone could win).

Sport can do amazing things, especially for women, in terms of visibility. So what do you think this home T20 can do and what was the importance and significance of India winning their own home World Cup last year?

Oh yeah. I should start in chronological order there, I’ll go with India first.

That was a World Cup win, which I think for everybody who was neutral in the game, and even those supporting the team that got beaten in the final, would say cricket needed.

India is such a juggernaut, that when their women’s team has had success, you just feel it opens the floodgates.

I mean, the Women’s Premier League had taken a little bit longer than a lot of people would have liked to have launched behind the IPL.

It almost felt for a long time as if the Indian board was waiting for the women to win something.

It was going to take them to win a World Cup before something like that would launch.

So that was great.

It was very well received when they went ahead and launched a WPL anyway.

Then you could almost say that because of that forward-thinking of launching the WPL, that has actually enabled the Indian women’s team to have the success they have on that global stage.

Because the WPL just drills them, prepares them for high octane matches, full stadia, pressure situations, international coaching, mixing with the best players in the world.

So it really elevated their women’s team.

You speak to players, and they all acknowledge the role that WPL has played in them being able to go on and win the World Cup.

So it’s given that massive boost that the game gets when the Indian public are behind a team.

And that will translate across to crowds in stadiums in England for this T20 World Cup as well.

Whoever is playing India in England will almost feel that it’s an away game.

I really do expect that.

The Indian support in the UK is so huge.

We’ll see that translate from the men’s game to the women’s game during this World Cup.

So even England will have their work cut out.

I think England supporters will do well to drown out Indian supporters when it comes to in-stadia support.

So it was a huge thing for the game overall for India to have won that World Cup.

They’ve very cleverly scheduled India-Pakistan to be at Edgbaston, and I think the atmosphere might be off to scale for that one.

Yeah, that is going to be cracking.

I’ve done a few India-Pakistan games, both men’s and women’s at the T20 World Cup, that last took place in Dubai.

And yeah, fervour and fever pitch just goes to another level.

The gap is probably bigger in the women’s game between India and Pakistan than it is in the men’s, though even the men’s has been pretty one-sided, in World Cups, in favour of India.

But yeah, the level of support, the hype, even though that rivalry and history of rivalry between the two exact teams is not in a way as fierce as the men’s.

Yeah, just any India-Pakistan rivalry absolutely cuts through.

So they’ve got that fixture.

The England-Scotland fixture at Headingley is another notable one, an historical fixture.

Again, you expect a big gap between the two teams, but Scotland have some world-class players in there, not least, look at Kathryn Bryce (above), where she’s playing around the world.

And it’s T20, so gaps do narrow in T20 cricket.

It’s by far the most competitive of the women’s World Cups because of the shortened formats.

You never know who might come to the fore.

I mean, New Zealand surprised everybody by winning the last one.

That, again, was a really heartwarming, uplifting victory to see New Zealand and legends like Suzie Bates and Sophie Devine (below) finally lifting some silverware towards the twilight of their careers.

So that was really, really special.

From what you’ve just said, I think I know the answer, but some people are cricket purists and prefer the ‘proper’ longer formats. But it sounds to me like you’ve fully embraced the T20.

I absolutely love all formats of cricket.

If anything, when you go from test match cricket to T20s, the ODI (One Day International) format in between can at times feel a little bit laboured.

But then you have a World Cup and you get fully engrossed in the 50-over formats.

Yeah, I’ve always loved T20 cricket alongside test cricket.

In a way, the advent of T20 cricket in 2003 was my gateway into commentating, because there were no women commentating on cricket at that time.

And a very new, different, funky version of the game enabled my producer, my boss at BBC cricket, Adam Mountford, to introduce a very new, very different sounding voice to cricket coverage.

And I started doing T20s. Doing ball-by-ball in that before graduating up to the longer formats of the game, and from domestic through to international.

So, I’ve been brought up on T20 cricket, but absolutely loving test cricket as well.

I think the two in a calendar complement each other well.

And of course, white ball cricket is absolutely essential for the development and growth of the game because it’s only very few countries who play test cricket.

So I love getting into that and the whole sense of it’s the main course, it’s the banquet, it’s the game of chess.

And I know that a lot of the women love it when they get their opportunity to play test cricket also.

But for the bulk of countries who are ICC members and who are playing cricket internationally, T20 is the growth vehicle for them.

And of course, for the associate nations, a 50-over World Cup is equally as important.

So white ball cricket absolutely has to have its place in the grand scheme of world cricket.

Do you think the T20 has grabbed new fans? It’s more achievable for a family with kids maybe to go along and watch because it’s more of a defined time. As in other sports with rugby sevens, football sevens, different formats, which slightly dilute it. But you get new people in.

Yeah, T20 absolutely was invented by Stuart Robertson, the ECB marketing guy.

He’s very much credited with inventing T20 cricket.

So the ECB led the way with the T20 format.

Then, of course, when India won the first ever World T20 in 2007 – the men – that then spawned the advent of the IPL.

And it just took T20 to a whole other level.

Now the franchise leagues all over the world have absolutely exploded.

But yeah, it was brought in because it was seen that men’s domestic cricket – because at the time there wasn’t really much in the way of women’s domestic cricket that had any profile – was on the wane and they wanted a way of reinvigorating the game.

Again, shorter time spans in a time slot so that people could come – short evening games.

From that now, for various other reasons, you’ve got the Hundred and even shorter format of the game, albeit the irony of actually every match day being a double-header.

So in fact, the day of cricket is not the shortened thing.

It’s still that whole day of cricket that people will commit to.

But that’s absolutely done wonders for the women’s game and having that format of the game.

They’ve done that with this as well. There’s a couple of double headers, in this T20 World Cup.

Yes, there are.

Whether some of that is due to simple logistics of needing to get the number of matches done in the short amount of time available.

So some days are standalone matches and other days are double-headers.

We’ve just talked about India, Pakistan and England, Scotland. Are there any others that jump out at you?

I’m going to reach my diary and just see the fixtures to remind myself that India and Australia are in the same group, because that will be obviously big.

You obviously know all the players quite well, but are there any emerging players who might come to the fore in the T20?

Well, Tilly Corteen-Coleman (above) is quite the pick! She was the subject of a bidding war in the Hundred auction, leading to that incredible £105k price tag for an uncapped teenager. But now she’s got a huge opportunity on the biggest stage of all.

It isn’t certain how many matches she’ll get to play, because there are so many spin options in the England squad – Sophie Ecclestone, obviously, plus Linsey Smith as another left arm spinner, then Charlie Dean with her off spin.

But Charlotte Edwards has known about her and followed her for a long time and indeed coached her at Southern Brave in the Hundred, where she made a massive impact with the ball last year.

Even when she was 16, Edwards said she had a real maturity to go with her skillset, and of course other teams at the World Cup won’t have come up against her much yet, so that can work in England’s favour.

I mean, not an upcoming new player per se, but Alice Capsey (below) is someone who burst onto the scene at the age of 15. And I was listening to an interview she had just done with Wisden recently, and it just feels as if she’s sort of hit a new level of maturity in her game now, like having had a bit of a dip, you know, had that real rush of success of having to learn what it means to be in the spotlight and in the spotlight when you may be not playing so well.

So she could have almost a career-defining T20.

It was too early for her to have a career-defining World Cup.

But yeah, somebody like Alice Capsey, who’s had great success at a very young age, I think now really could come into her own on a World Cup stage on home soil.

And the England team will be absolutely desperate to do well this summer for sure.

Are there any underrated teams that maybe have gone under the radar, who might surprise us?

Well, I mean, I wouldn’t say an underrated team, but a team that is playing very well at the moment is South Africa, who have just beaten India in a T20 series.

You always now fancy India strongly, having seen what they did at the last 50-over World Cup.

But yeah, South Africa seem to be really getting themselves together for this tournament.

And, of course, they had heartbreak at the last T20 World Cup.

So I think they are absolutely a team to watch.

Yeah, alongside India.

But really beyond that, you look at the top teams.

So yes, Australia, India, South Africa, England, and probably put England a little bit higher, given it’s their home World Cup now.

And New Zealand will be in the mix for the semi finals as well.

I mean, West Indies always have the propensity to cause an upset, and particularly in T20 cricket, just having some of those class and explosive players. So they will always be there and thereabouts.

You know, Australia not making the semi-finals, for example, is always a possibility.

There’s always a chance for a shock in a T20 World Cup…

Find T20 WWC fixtures and tickets here: https://www.icc-cricket.com/tournaments/womens-t20-worldcup-2026/matches

Photos: Alison Mitchell, Instagram