England travel to Indore for their next two games to take on their toughest opponents in India, on Sunday, and Australia on 22 October.
Neither are ideal opponents to be facing with batting fragilities to address but the pitches there are expected to be flatter and friendlier to batters.
It was Knight’s gritty determination which rescued them against Bangladesh and Sciver-Brunt’s class ensured they posted a winning total against Sri Lanka, but when both fell early against Pakistan, England could not recover.
“Nat Sciver-Brunt and Heather Knight have scored more runs between them than their team-mates combined at this tournament,” World Cup winner Alex Hartley said on BBC Test Match Special.
“That says something within itself, and neither of them batted in the first match. That is a concern.”
Beaumont and Jones have struggled against the swinging ball – stands of six, 24 and 13 following the chase of just 70 in the opener against South Africa – but Charlotte Edwards’ first move in charge was to show faith and re-promote Jones, and it feels unlikely she will disrupt the pair.
After Sciver-Brunt and Knight, England’s next best batter has been number eight Charlie Dean with a steady 27 not out in a tense chase against Bangladesh, a handy 19 against Sri Lanka and she top-scored with 33 against Pakistan.
There have been glimpses of promise from Alice Capsey at seven but Sophia Dunkley and Emma Lamb are struggling to start their innings against spin in the middle order.
Lamb has 18 runs in three innings while Dunkley has 29, each of their dismissals to spin, with the former being asked to play an unfamiliar role.
When batting in the top three in domestic and international cricket, Lamb averages 44 in 61 innings with five centuries. These three innings here are the first she has ever played at number six professionally in the 50-over format.
Danni Wyatt-Hodge is England’s unused batter on the bench, and played in the middle order for a number of years, so it will be interesting to see how long the Lamb experiment continues.
England may have dodged an embarrasing slip-up here, but will be aware things are not going to get any easier.
India and Australia await. Any wobbles against those two and England’s campaign could quickly fall flat.
