Women’s T20 World Cup: How Freya Kemp & Dani Gibson are solving England’s batting problem

Kemp played in the dismal Ashes defeat but his back problems soon returned.

This meant months of disappointment, but it was time to work on his swing. He played all summer for Hampshire and only contributed with the willow at his disposal.

Gibson, meanwhile, missed the Ashes entirely. He had also suffered a back injury and his inability to bowl allowed him more time to work on his batting over the winter.

She particularly tried to improve her offside game and hit Scotland’s Priyanaz Chatterji through the cover twice in Saturday’s final.

“I’ve been very dominant leg side in the past, so I’ve been working on trying to get offside and it’s been going very well,” Gibson told Sky Sports after Saturday’s win.

If Lauren Bell and Linsey Smith are England’s tall and short, spin and seam players, the bowling Yin and Yang, Kemp and Gibson, signed for more than £100,000 at The Hundred, are similarly complementary.

The slender and powerful left-hander Kemp is almost Ben Stokes-like with a fluent batting, delivering a clean straight shot or hitting it through mid-wicket, as demonstrated by his two sixes against Scotland.

Gibson, a right-hander whose power is less surprising given his squat frame, can hit the ball flat but is more adept at finding boundaries behind the square.

This makes their partnerships terrible for a bowler.

“Kempy has a lot of power on the court and Gibbo can hit accurately,” Dunkley said.

“They are a great combination and ultimately having a partnership like this gives us a lot of confidence as senior executives.”