Westbury vows to learn from testing first year as Middlesex captain

Izzy Westbury believes lessons learned from her first year as Middlesex Women’s captain will make her a better leader this season.

Their 2016 campaign begins on Sunday when they host Surrey in the Royal London One-Day Cup at Eastcote CC.

Hammersmith-born Westbury, 26, succeeded Beth Morgan as skipper ahead of a transitional year for the side.

But with new coach Sanjay Patel at the helm, and New Zealand bowler Holly Huddlestone joining as the overseas player, Westbury is confident the team can build on last year’s placings of sixth in the One-Day Cup and fourth in the T20s.

She told West London Sport: “I feel as though we’ve gone through the teething problem stage.

“We’ve got a settled team and we know where we went wrong last year. We still managed to achieve, in my mind, a good finishing position in both the T20s and the one-dayers.

“Holly has come at the right stage for us. She’s had international experience and wants to regain her place, so she’s got that fire in her belly.

“I also feel as though the young players are getting to that stage where they’re taking on responsibility, both in the bowling department and in the batting department.”

Westbury says last season taught her a lot about her own game but insists the biggest improvement will come in her captaincy, after stepping out of Morgan’s shadow..

Middlesex Women – 2015 stats
One-Day Cup best batsman: Fran Wilson (301 runs at 60.20)
One-Day Cup best bowler: Danielle Warren (15 wkts at 14.20)
T20 best batsman: Sophia Dunkley (124 runs at 20.67)
T20 best bowler: Izzy Westbury (10 wkts at 13.00)

She said: “Beth was probably the best captain I ever served under, and I was very aware of that, so I tried to stamp my own mark of authority. I tried a bit too hard and made a lot of mistakes.

“We won the first five matches so you don’t think about what’s going wrong – then after that we lost four matches in a row and the cracks started showing.

“For me as a leader, I had to take stock and listen to some of the players in the team a bit more. It was hard at the time but I’m glad it happened.”

A new competition, the Women’s Super League, launches this summer, involving six host teams – Hampshire, Lancashire, Surrey, Yorkshire, Loughborough University and a joint South West team.

Westbury was disappointed to see an MCC/Middlesex bid turned down – but feels the focus should now be on her team getting the chance to play at Lord’s.

“It’s evident the ECB wanted to have a geographical spread and only one club in London,” she said.

“It’s disappointing from a Middlesex-MCC perspective but Fran Wilson will be playing with the Western Storm and a number of others are being lined up to play for various different hosts.

“I think first we’d like to see Middlesex Women at one point playing on the hallowed turf – that’s what we’ve been pushing for for a while.”