Sophie Ecclestone opens up on mental health, fitness criticism and World Cup hopes

Elite women cricketers are judged on wickets, body language and body shape, and Sophie Ecclestone has felt all of it. England’s leading T20 wicket-taker said the pressure of being one of the game’s most visible players, combined with a brutal run of results, pushed her into a difficult period that left her speaking to a private psychologist once every few weeks while she tried to steady herself.

Ecclestone, 27, said there was a stretch when she did not leave her house for five days. She said the problems were not confined to cricket, and that last year she seriously considered walking away from the sport after England’s defeat in the 2024 Women’s T20 World Cup and the 16-0 Ashes whitewash in Australia at the start of 2025. Even so, she now says she is feeling better and is enjoying playing for England again under Charlotte Edwards, the head coach she described as supportive during her recovery.

Her return matters because England are building toward a home ICC Women’s T20 World Cup that begins on June 12, 2026, with the tournament staged across England and Wales and the full 12-team field confirmed. Ecclestone said a victory on home soil would be the ideal answer to the pain of the last 18 months, giving England a chance to "put things right" after the Ashes collapse and the early exit in 2024.

The backdrop also includes the public row over fitness that flared after the Ashes. Ecclestone refused a television interview with former England player and pundit Alex Hartley after Hartley’s criticism of England’s conditioning, and ECB managing director of women’s cricket Clare Connor later accepted that the non-interview was a communications mistake. Ecclestone has since said she and Hartley had both moved on from the incident, but the episode underlined how quickly scrutiny can spill from performance into personal judgment in elite sport.

England’s hopes now rest in part on Ecclestone finding her best form again. She overtook Katherine Sciver-Brunt in 2024 to become England women’s leading T20 wicket-taker, and 2026 marks 10 years since her England debut. That record, and her renewed appetite for the game, have placed her back at the centre of England’s bid to emulate the country’s last major women’s global title, the 2017 World Cup win at Lord’s, when England beat India by nine runs in the final.