Picture by Sameera Peiris/Getty Images. Rachel Slater celebrates a T20 World Cup wicket for Scotland.
By Rachel Slater
Looking back on the T20 World Cup with Scotland, it certainly fell into the ‘bittersweet’ category.
It was an incredible month, and so many people have been very complimentary about how we played and what we did there. But we believe we should have come away from that with at least one more win, if not two, than the one we got against Ireland in our opening game.
If that was the case, we would have finished higher and potentially got ourselves automatic qualification for the next World Cup.
There was obvious disappointment from a team perspective, and then personally given the knee injury I suffered in my last over of our last game against Sri Lanka at Old Trafford.
I was bowling the third ball of my last over and as I landed on my back leg, I felt a pop and a bit of pain. I didn’t think it would be too bad initially, but when I set off from the top of my mark the next ball I just couldn’t run.
It was the worse case scenario – a torn meniscus.
Picture by Matthew Lewis/Getty Images. Rachel Slater dismisses Izzy Sharp of New Zealand during the Group B match in late June.
I’m approximately four weeks post-op now. The first six weeks is very slow. I’m still in a knee brace. I’ve been back in the gym, but I’m limited as to what I can do.
I’m not sure ‘nice’ is the right word because you wouldn’t wish this on anybody. But there are a couple of us at Yorkshire in the same situation, so you’re not on your own in terms of rehab.
With The Hundred on, there hasn’t been loads of the girls around, but that will change over the next few days.
We have a great group here at Yorkshire. The backroom staff are brilliant, and all the girls are just really good mates.
After a disappointing start to the Vitality Blast, we had a great end and gained some real momentum, which we can hopefully take in this last block of 50-over matches, which starts again next week against Warwickshire at Edgbaston.
Games like Somerset at home, Lancashire away, that’s how we should be performing week in and week out.
Picture by Allan McKenzie/SWPix.com. Sterre Kalis and Lauren Winfield-Hill batted Yorkshire to an impressive victory over Somerset at Headingley in the Vitality Blast just before The Hundred. They will be aiming to do similar in the coming weeks in the final block of Metro Bank One-Day Cup matches.
I don’t really know exactly what our chances of qualification are, but we have six games left. If we can get four or five wins, that would be a real success for us.
It’s been a bit of weird season for us in the sense that we’ve won some standout matches like The Blaze at Headingley in the 50-over stuff and also Lancashire at Old Trafford. The Blaze are top of the table, Lancashire were the defending champions.
But we’ve not got over the line in a number of games that we should have done. Somerset at Taunton first game of the season was one, and Durham at Scarborough was another.
We’ve shown that we can beat anyone, and that should give us confidence for the next few weeks and going into next season as well.
Finally, just going back to my injury, I’ve been away a lot over the last couple of years, and that may well be the case in next couple as well once I get myself back fit.
So if I can take any positives from what happened at the World Cup, it’s given me the chance to spend some time at home and be around friends and family.
