“I always remind myself that cricket is the most humbling sport in the world,” Davina Perrin told ESPNcricinfo last week, while speaking at Lord’s before she had learned of her omission from England’s T20 World Cup squad. “One day you’re up here, the next day you’re down there, so I have to keep reminding myself of that. But I have enough siblings. I have five of them who keep my feet on the ground.”
Perrin might well be in need of some of those home comforts today, after Tuesday’s reveal, by head coach Charlotte Edwards, of the most eagerly awaited England squad in recent times. With the notable exception of 18-year-old Tilly Corteen-Coleman, Edwards’s selections seemed geared towards giving the team’s established stars one last chance to nail their brief in front of an expectant home audience, rather than throw the stage open to an eager next generation.
But what a next generation. “Wow, she’s an exciting talent,” Edwards said at the Ageas Bowl on Wednesday, as she explained her reasoning. In placing her faith in England’s established openers, Sophia Dunkley and Danni Wyatt-Hodge (who, it should be noted, played her first competitive fixtures before Perrin was born), she is keeping her powder dry for the rebuild that will surely have to come, in triumph or otherwise, at the end of a seismic season.
“Yeah, she was obviously in the conversations,” Edwards said. “It was going to be really hard to displace those two and she probably hasn’t had as much exposure to other places in the order, so you need quite a versatile batter on the bench. But her time will come, and those players know that she’s on their heels as well, which I think is great for this group and it’s really competitive at the moment.”
It speaks volumes of Perrin’s potential that, at the age of 19 and after such a rocket-propelled year, there would be any cause for her to be disappointed in this moment. A mere eight months have elapsed since the innings that changed her life – that other-worldly century, from just 42 balls, that powered Northern Superchargers into last year’s Hundred final – and more recently still she made history as the first-ever pick, men’s or women’s, in the Hundred auction. It is easy to overlook the fact that she hasn’t even made her England debut yet – and tellingly, she won’t be doing so this side of the World Cup either, after her quiet omission from the ODI series against New Zealand next month.
It’s safe to assume that she’ll be phlegmatic about it all, as she hunkers down with her county squad at Warwickshire to continue the development that propelled her into the conversation in the first place. Her form was on display earlier this month with an imposing knock of 81 from 76 balls against Hampshire in the One-Day Cup, even though she joked that her coach, Ali Maiden, called her a “bottle-job” for falling short of a hundred.
“I’ve got a good support network at Bears, my home club, and I’m back there as well for [Birmingham] Phoenix, which is great,” she said. “I’ve worked well with Ali in the last year and I’m grateful for his input, and also my family. My parents … they’re my rock, and they make sure that I stay in line, even if it’s just making sure my bedroom is tidy. That knocks me down a few pegs pretty easily.”
Perrin’s omission from the World Cup squad was arguably telegraphed by her relative lack of involvement in their intra-squad contests in South Africa last month. She made 37 in three innings for Team Brittin with a top-score of 18, though as Edwards noted, the more valuable aspect of that trip was simply to bring her more explicitly into the England reckoning, and to observe her progress at such close quarters.
“It was a great experience,” Perrin said. “There was competitive energy, we went into each game with the mindset to win, and playing alongside some of the best players in the world, you learn so much about yourself as a cricketer in a short space of time.”
And now, she gets to kick back – relatively speaking – and enjoy the summer’s spectacle without being part of the main attraction.
“It’s a really exciting year for the women’s game, and for the game in general,” she said. “Whether it’s women’s or men’s, it’s cricket’s home World Cup, and that’s the most important part of it.
“We’re at the point now where the game’s getting more and more exposure, so it’s quite good timing. There’s a lot of talent in the England squad, and obviously the girls will be hoping to take that trophy home, which would be so good to see. Imagine that!”
She’s conscious, too, of the pressures that have been created by the recent successes of the Lionesses and Red Roses in football and rugby respectively. Last summer, Sarina Wiegman’s squad made history by winning their second European title in a row, before the rugby squad capped a record run of 33 matches without defeat by beating Canada in the World Cup final at Twickenham in September.
“There’s so much to take from both teams’ successes but, at the end of the day, it shows that performance is key,” Perrin said. “Those sports have done it in their own way, but because both teams won, that translated through to more attraction and more attention.
“I was at Wembley the other night,” she added, referencing England’s 1-0 win over Spain in their World Cup qualifier. “It was packed! I was like, Oh my gosh, it’s unbelievable. The atmosphere was great, everything, and that’s filtered through to the club game as well.
“So I’d love to see that happen with cricket. I’d love to see the success of the England women’s team be transferred through to the county and domestic set-up, and to see that even down to grassroots, and see a growth there.
“Because cricket’s such a great sport. The best sport in the world. Who wouldn’t want to come down and watch, or pick up a bat and play, on whatever day it may be? It’s an unbelievable sport and that love for it that the girls have needs to be shared with everyone.”
England’s last Women’s World Cup win also came on home soil in 2017, and was the catalyst for everything that Perrin has been able to latch onto in her own acceleration to prominence. Even without an active role in this summer’s tournament, it won’t be long before she is cemented among a new generation of role models – even if, as a player of West Indian heritage, her own idols – Sir Viv Richards and Michael Holding – are rather longer in the tooth.
“I watched them through blurry YouTube videos, where you can just about detect the red ball going across the screen,” she said. “My dad’s side of the family are all from Jamaica. He used to play, but he stopped because he had a family and realised he couldn’t be gone on a weekend. But a lot of my family still support West Indies, and that era of cricket is the greatest era of cricket ever.
“I’ve watched Fire in Babylon plenty times. They were just trailblazers for the game,” she added. “I remember watching an innings where Viv got hit on the head, and he just stared him down, then hit the next ball for six.
“I just thought, wow, that is exactly how I want to play cricket. Ideally, not getting hit on the head! But that flare, that confidence, the domination was second to none. The way that they came in with that pace bowling attack and changed the game forever.
“I admire that so much. I’d love to be a part of a team one day that trailblazes like that, and changes the game, while playing with enjoyment and flair at the same time.”
She might not be in quite the right time on this occasion, but Perrin is probably in the right place to bring that sort of an ambition to fruition.
