“There’s no way he would miss it,” Bell says. “I’m surprised he hasn’t done this whole tournament, he normally doesn’t miss a game, but he’s coming.
“I really want him to experience it because it’s not like any cricket I’ve played before with the support and the crowds. You never know with cricket how much you’re going to experience, so I told him he needed to come and at least experience it once.”
Having been there for all her career developments, including when she was deciding between playing football for Reading or becoming a professional cricketer, her father is now seeing the benefits of Bell choosing to change her bowling action.
“I wasn’t the best bowler in the world and I want to become one of the best seamers in the world,” she says honestly.
Bell was already playing for England and performing well when she decided to tinker with the action that had guided her to that point – and undertaking the change during a single season in 2024 took a serious amount of work.
“I’m a completely different bowler,” she explains. “There’s three big things for bowling pace: movement in the air, pace and bounce. My new action provides me with more pace, bounce and I move the ball away, but it will allow me to move the ball in as well.
“I think all three aspects [are better] and from an injury prevention point of view, I’m playing with no pain and before I fell away a lot and had niggly back pain all the time.”
