T20 World Cup: How hard work and a disco jacket helped England improve their fielding.

There’s more to England’s progress than a manager wearing an ABBA tribute.

Fitness and fielding were the two priorities when coach Charlotte Edwards took over after the Ashes defeat. She quietly kept the conversation quiet.

In one of her previous roles at the Southern Vipers, Edwards used an electric scooter to track and monitor her players’ fitness and one of her first moves after becoming England manager was introducing minimum fitness levels.

The new standards include a two-kilometer time trial, 30m two-way sprints (effectively running sprints), a squat and vertical jump burst test, and another that measures a player’s top speed.

England posted clips from the tense session earlier in the season on their social media accounts. Videos of boat parties posted on players’ accounts have long gone under Edwards.

Wilton was given free rein to improve England’s fielding. This summer they were able to work with the players in training camps in Oman, Stellenbosch and Pretoria without any international matches.

There were further training sessions at Millfield and Repton schools and the England Cricket Center at Loughborough’s early season meetings.

“Progress comes from time commitment and putting in the work,” Dean said.

“All our work we put in work, but especially last year.”

More attention was paid to detail as the players bought in.

Danny Gibson, Freya Kemp and Lindsey Smith – a field trio who usually share the job of guarding the boundary – practice catching or running at high speed to find and return the ball.

The mighty Gibson, who is one of England’s fastest players on the ground, has repeatedly claimed that she batted second as she completed her fastest career in the tournament.

Bowler Lauren Bell regularly tries to fly one-handed catches in training – the kind of opportunities that come at short fine leg.

It’s obvious but it seems to be working.

“Being more specific about what we do has put us in a bigger position,” says Dean.

And now there is one game left – Sunday’s final against Australia. There is no better opposition to strengthen their progress.

“Going into Lotte after the Ashes when we were poor was obviously something we wanted to do as a team and we had a commitment from everyone to do that,” said captain Nat Sciver-Brunt.

“Lotti’s plan for how we do it is what Nick did, encouraging us to push ourselves as hard as we can on the field and not put a ceiling on anything we do.”

The job – and the jacket – got England so far.

Can you keep up with intense pressure?