Alice Capsey: England's New Wicketkeeper in ODI Series Against Ireland
Alice Capsey walked out for England’s pre-series photo shoot on Monday with one extra item to remember. Bat, pads, helmet… and a pair of wicketkeeping gloves that could reshape her international role.
She has already batted in pressure situations, bowled key overs and emerged as one of England’s sharpest fielders. At 22, people inside the game talk about her as a future captain. Now she is about to add another job to the list in the one-day international series against Ireland: England’s wicketkeeper, despite having kept in only one professional match – a 50-over game for South East Stars back in 2020.
“It is a bit of an unknown,” she admits. Not the training. The stage. “In games, I have not done it a huge amount. But the work I have done off the pitch, I know I am putting a lot of hard work in. It gives me a lot of confidence.”
This is not a wild gamble. Charlotte Edwards does not really do those.
England first floated the idea during their pre-season camp in South Africa, revisiting Capsey’s past. She kept wicket for much of her junior career at Surrey before shelving the gloves when a higher age group needed an off-spinner. The skill never vanished. It just went into storage.
With keeping options thin, England quietly promoted her up the depth chart. After some early-season work, she was listed as the back-up to Amy Jones for this summer’s T20 World Cup. She stayed on the bench as a keeper, but not far from a bold reshuffle. When Nat Sciver-Brunt returned from injury for the semi-final, one scenario had Sophia Dunkley retaining her place, Jones missing out and Capsey taking the gloves on the biggest stage. In the end, England stuck with the established order.
Capsey does not pretend she was entirely at ease with the idea at first.
“At the beginning of the summer, I was pretty nervous to do it,” she says. “I went into my shell a little bit and was quite internal. It was awesome to have Sophie Ecclestone and those characters who are outgoing, jokey and keep everything relaxed. Everyone has seen me train so much now over the course of the summer it is second nature.”
That training has gone beyond a few token drills. Capsey has thrown herself into the rough edges of wicketkeeping, the part that separates the enthusiasts from the specialists.
“The amount of times you take blows on the fingers, or one goes down the leg side and you miss it…” She almost relishes the description. “But those are the bits you enjoy, working to get better and better.”
Her route back to the gloves runs through familiar ground. Surrey’s academy first moulded her as a keeper. Only when she stepped up an age group and filled the off-spin vacancy did the role change.
“Who knows if I hadn’t played up whether I would have just kept on keeping, but it is really cool going back to the roots and where I started,” she says.
Those roots stretch into Sussex too. At Bede’s School, Capsey crossed paths with Sarah Taylor, then working as a sports coach before returning to the professional game and later joining England’s men’s set-up. Capsey had already watched Taylor from the stands at Lord’s in 2017 as a 12-year-old, when England lifted the World Cup and Taylor’s glovework set standards for a generation.
Now she had the chance to work with her wicketkeeping idol, widely regarded as one of the finest the game has seen.
“The way she went about it, did it her way and brought an X-factor to it was really cool,” Capsey says. Taylor has nudged her ever since. “She has been on my shoulder for the last four or five years saying I need to get back to keeping. It has been awesome to touch base with her, especially this summer to be able to message her and say ‘I am back’.”
The comeback has been methodical. Capsey ramped up her glovework at the start of the summer, threading keeping drills around her batting, bowling and out-fielding. The gym work changed too. Extra focus on leg strength and abductors to cope with the endless squats behind the stumps.
“I have pulled up, touch wood, after all of it so far,” she says. “Come back to me at the end of the week.”
The only recent match practice came out of public view. Before the T20 World Cup, she kept in a behind-closed-doors warm-up against India. It was a quiet test of readiness. She passed. Standing up to Dani Gibson, she took a sharp, rising catch. She completed a stumping off Linsey Smith. She did not concede a bye.
“It was awesome. I loved the experience,” she says. “Keeping up to Gibbo was a really nice challenge. That catch was one of the highlights but also it is the little things, whether in the first over stood back to [Lauren] Filer and getting one cleanly in the hands, there were a couple of leg-side takes as well.”
This week, the tempo has gone up again. Capsey has been standing up to Issy Wong in training, one of the quickest in England’s ranks. Those sessions hint at a broader plan.
If the next three ODIs go well, the ripple effect could be significant. At the very least, England gain reliable cover for Jones, who is 33 and rested for this series. They also create genuine competition. Jones struggled with the bat at the World Cup, with five single-figure scores in seven innings. If Capsey can keep well enough to hold down the gloves, England could open a slot for another power-hitter in the top order while retaining Capsey’s batting, which already merits selection on its own.
That possibility brings its own tension.
“There is going to be nerves and pressure around, but more internal pressure than anything,” she says. “As a professional athlete you don’t want to do it badly and you are representing England. It is an international series, there are ICC points on the line. To be trusted to have the gloves for England has got to give you confidence as well.”
She is under no illusion that she is the finished product. She does not need to be. Not yet.
“I am not the finished article by any means but I did it for a long time growing up. Regardless of the challenges presented this week I know I have a bit of experience to fall back on which is nice.”
So Capsey walks into this Ireland series carrying more responsibility and more opportunity than ever. Bat in hand, ball occasionally in grip, gloves strapped on, she is about to find out whether returning to her roots can open the next chapter of her England career.
