It’s not often that you hear a fast bowler describe themselves as “smiley”, especially not with an Ashes series around the corner. But with days to go until she spearheads England’s attack in Australia, that’s exactly what the 24-year-old Lauren Filer is claiming as her defining characteristic. “I’m a bit too smiley to be the scary fast bowler,” she says. “I tried to stare someone down in South Africa and I laughed because I just couldn’t do it.”
Instead, her approach is to “let my bowling do the talking” – as it did, loudly, in last month’s Bloemfontein Test. On the second day Filer sent down two terrifyingly hostile spells with the new ball, reaching speeds of 78mph and twice hitting players on the helmet – an act of aggression rarely seen before in the women’s game. “I don’t want to hurt anyone, but to get a few helmets or gloves is always quite fun,” she says.
South Africa’s Shabnim Ismail is the only bowler to have clocked 80mph in international women’s cricket, which puts Filer up there with the fastest in the world (Ismail retired in 2023). Filer has never played in Australia before, but the hard, bouncy pitches are likely to suit her – and England are delighted at the prospect of the old enemy being bombarded with some short stuff.
“All the other girls love it,” Filer says. “Sophie Ecclestone likes to watch me bowl because she says something is always going to happen. Whether it’s a four or a wicket or someone getting hit in the head or whatever it is, it’s fun. I try not to be boring.”
Her career has been anything but. August 2022 was a lowlight: she had just graduated with a degree in sports science from Cardiff Metropolitan University, but struggled for Trent Rockets in the Hundred. To add insult to injury, she was fired from her job at Tesco mid-competition because cricket was becoming too all-consuming. “They sent me a letter during the Hundred and my parents opened it. I didn’t find out until after because they wanted to keep it from me until the cricket finished – they decided not to add any more stress on. I was going to leave anyway because I wanted to focus on cricket, but they beat me to it.”
Fixtures
ODIs: 12 January (Sydney), 14 January (Melbourne), 17 January (Hobart)
T20s: 20 January (Sydney), 23 January (Canberra), 25 January (Adelaide)
Test: 30 January to 2 February (Melbourne)
Points system
Two points are awarded for a win in white-ball games and four in the Test, with the points shared if a game is drawn, tied or abandoned. Whichever team has most points at the end wins. If the teams are level on points after the Test match Australia, as holders, retain the Ashes – as they did after an 8-8 stalemate in 2023.
How can I follow it?
The series will be broadcast in the UK by TNT Sports and Discovery+, with radio commentary on BBC Radio 5 Sports Extra, or on the BBC website and BBC Sounds app, with the first match starting at 11.30pm GMT on 11 January. In Australia it will be broadcast on Seven and 7plus as well as Fox Cricket and Kayo, with radio coverage on Fox Cricket and ABC Radio, starting on 12 January at 10.30am AEDT. Willow TV will show the Ashes in the US, starting on Saturday at 6.30pm EST or 3.30pm PST.
What’s new this year?
This is the eighth time the Women’s Ashes will be decided using a points system, and like the preceding seven series there will be three ODIs, three T20s and a single Test. But there has been a significant change in the schedule: for the first time the Test will end the series. Previously it has either been scheduled at the start, or it has come between the ODIs and the T20s. Because the winners of the Test get twice as many points as the winners of any other game it can have a huge effect on deciding the series – no team has ever lost the Test and won the Ashes, though four of the seven Tests have been drawn – so placing it last makes it more likely that the outcome of the series will remain unknown until the end. On the eve of this series players from both sides have called for a further change to the schedule for the next series in 2027, demanding three Tests to match the number of ODIs and T20s. In 2023 the ECB announced venues for England’s next two home Ashes Tests, with Headingley pencilled in for 2027 and the Ageas Bowl for 2031.
Isn't it all a bit rushed?
Jon Lewis, England's head coach, has criticised the schedule, which on two occasions has games being played in different cities with only one day between them. "My preference would be that there's more space between the games, and the players' preference would be as well," he said. If the Test match goes the distance the series will last 22 days, with play on 10 of them, in which time the squads will fly at least 2,635 miles between host cities. When the Ashes was last played, in England in 2023, the series took 27 days and the total distance between the venues was 490 miles. The last series in Australia was the shortest of the seven using this format, taking only 20 days, but minimised travel time by using only three venues.
Will the women use the same venues as the men?
Some of the time. The opening game will be played at the 10,000-capacity North Sydney Oval rather than the SCG, which will be used for the first T20, and the first of two games in Melbourne will be played at the 7,000-capacity Junction Oval. But three of the venues being used in next winter’s men’s Ashes, and one that was used in the last men’s series, are on the schedule, culminating in the return of women’s Test cricket to the MCG in Melbourne for the first time since 1948-49, for what will be the first day-night Test at the ground. Simon Burnton
Fortunately, Western Storm stepped into the breach, offering her a professional deal that November. It left Filer time over the winter to remodel her action under the guidance of Matt Mason, the England fast bowling coach, and Somerset’s Jack Brooks. As the new year dawned, the England captain, Heather Knight, clocked suddenly that her Storm teammate was bowling uncomfortably quickly at her in the nets. One thing led to another, and Filer found herself plucked from obscurity into bowling in front of 10,000 fans in the 2023 Trent Bridge Test, the match that launched the Women’s Ashes series.
Were there nerves? “I felt like I should have been really nervous, but I think because I didn’t think I was going to play and it was just an opportunity for me to show what I could do, there wasn’t too much expectation.” It’s true that no one quite expected her to be selected – least of all the Australians. “They didn’t know who I was!” Next thing they knew, she had Ellyse Perry ducking and diving, eventually caught fending one to gully on 99, robbing her of a third Test hundred.
Filer established her credentials further against Sri Lanka later in the summer, and was named player of the series in the one-day internationals after taking eight wickets. Though she missed out on selection for the T20 World Cup in October, her international future looks secure: last month she signed her first England central contract. The past 18 months have been all about increasing her accuracy – avoiding the mistake of becoming obsessed with pace at all costs. “I watch the Ashes Test match back now and I’m like: ‘How did I get any wickets?’ Because actually, I didn’t bowl that consistently at all,” she says. “The Sri Lanka series was good for me, because it showed that it wasn’t necessarily all about the pace.”
All the same, the elusive 80mph barrier is a carrot that she can’t quite resist chasing. “Matt Mason wants me to hit it every time he sees me bowl,” she says. “There was a game in South Africa where he read the speedgun wrong and he texted me and said: ‘You’ve hit 80!’ It was 119kmph, and he read it was 129kmph. I was like: ‘No I haven’t.’ He said: ‘Are you sure?’”
Might it happen during the Ashes, then? “Maybe. I have got consistently quicker over the past couple of years …” She is smiling again now – which seems to be her danger signal. Australia had better watch out.
