Nat Sciver-Brunt (PTI Photo)

MUMBAI: “Form goes up and down,” says Nat Sciver-Brunt, so she wants to make the most of it as the “feeling when you are not so confident isn’t that nice.”
It’s a captain’s delight to have someone like the England allrounder on the roster. The 32-year-old has unlocked her beast mode for Mumbai Indians this season, topping the Orange Cap list with 493 runs in nine games at an average of 70.42, with the help of five fifties. She already became the first player to score 400-plus runs in WPL history and is just seven runs short of crossing the 500-run mark in a season. She also has nine scalps in her kitty, putting her in the driver’s seat to take the Player of the Tournament award.
She also played a stellar role in MI’s title run in the inaugural edition in 2023, scoring 332 runs and taking 10 wickets.
A trait of top players is that they always find a way to improve their game consistently, and Sciver-Brunt is among those. During this campaign, she has impressed with her ability to score at a brisk rate through the middle overs. Her career strike rate in T20Is is 118.12, while in WPL it is 143.24, but in this edition, her strike rate stands at 156.50.
Other MI batters have benefited from it, as well as her calm approach while batting, which has given the likes of Hayley Matthews and Harmanpreet Kaur the time to build their innings.
Sciver-Brunt stressed that she didn’t try anything different in the lead-up to the tournament. “I haven’t done anything different in terms of my preparation or how I go about my innings. I have stuck to my strengths quite a lot and have played what is in front of me,” she said.
Besides scoring briskly, what has made her more dangerous is her ability to score all around the park. Fuller lengths have been dispatched down the ground or through the covers, while anything slightly wide or short has been sent to the boundary with ferocity.
Sciver-Brunt and Matthews have developed a nice understanding between them, which has seen them stitch match winning partnerships for MI. Like the 71-ball 133-run association against Gujarat Giants in the eliminator on Thursday, which was also their second 100-plus stand of the season. They also put on a 133-run association against UP Warriorz (UPW), besides two 50-plus stands—92 and 57 against UPW and Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), respectively. She has also taken on the lead role while mentoring the West Indian, who at times has found it difficult to construct her innings.
“Apart from this tournament, I haven’t really batted with Hayley, but we seemed to click well from the first year. (Against Giants) she wanted to go off after a quicker start, but it was good she stayed out there and didn’t give her wicket away. I was just reassuring her that you only need to time the ball, you don’t need to whack it,” reasoned Sciver-Brunt.