Lauren Bell’s bowling looks different now, and the results are showing. The England seamer said a rebuild of her action after the 2023 Ashes helped her climb to a career-best third in the ICC’s T20I rankings in April, a rise that has been backed by sharp returns in recent matches and a strong winter run.
Bell is speaking now because the changes have started to pay off in plain view. In England’s recent series against New Zealand, she took a wicket with her first ball in her first T20I for 10 months, then struck again in her first over three days later. Before that, she won the WPL with RCB and opened Hampshire’s county season with a five-for, signs that the adjustment has not only held but sharpened her match-winning edge.
The rebuild began after the 2023 Ashes, when then England head coach Jon Lewis and the bowling staff asked Bell how she could improve. Bell said the conversation boiled down to a blunt question: how were they going to get better? She had already been carrying back pain, and she knew the old action had limits. For years she had bowled with inswing, but once she became more upright, the ball naturally started to swing away and she gained pace, movement and a stronger position.
That change did not come cleanly. Bell said she did not trust the new action at first because the ball was not swinging consistently, and that uncertainty made the adjustment one of the hardest periods of her career. She had to deal with the physical discomfort at the same time as the technical overhaul, and she admitted the combination shook her confidence before the benefits became obvious.
The payoff matters for England as much as it does for Bell. Since making her international debut in 2022, she has been one of the seamers expected to help fill the gap left by the retirements of Anya Shrubsole and Katherine Sciver-Brunt, and her recent form suggests she is moving into that role with more authority. With the 2026 Women’s T20 World Cup on the horizon, Bell appears to have arrived at the right time: quicker, more varied, and high in the rankings after the most difficult reset of her career.
What remains less clear is how far that action can still be refined. Bell has already shown she can carry the change through pressure, but the next test is whether she can keep the new movement and confidence intact when the biggest games return.
