England bowlers fear Rita Ora show will spoil Women’s T20 World Cup final warm-up

England have complained they are facing disruption to their World Cup final warm-up at Lord’s on Sunday from an unlikely source: the singer Rita Ora.

Ora is headlining the tournament closing ceremony, which lasts from 2.30pm to 3pm, with the final due to get under way half an hour later. It means that 30 minutes of pre-match warm-up time on the main square will be lost – although the players will have the Nursery Ground available to them throughout.

England’s captain, Nat Sciver-Brunt, said her bowlers were unimpressed by the timings, which will mean they have a smaller window than usual in which they can mark their run-ups on the main square. “Obviously there’s a few moving parts with the pre-game stuff,” Sciver-Brunt said. “People like to bowl before the game on one of the bowl-through wickets. We had a few chins down [when they found out].

“I guess that’s what you get when you’re playing in a final and there’s a lot of other moving parts that aren’t to do with the two teams playing. Hopefully we can go about our business as usual.”

The reaction seems somewhat overblown given that six years ago at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, Katy Perry’s show before the 2020 Women’s T20 World Cup final – featuring a huge purple stage and dancing cricket bats – made the entire main square inaccessible for several hours.

Australia’s captain, Sophie Molineux, seemed completely unbothered by the situation, joking: “I’m assuming if Rita Ora is here, we can evacuate the dancefloor, that’s for sure.”

Molineux herself will have happy memories of Perry’s 2020 performance, when the left-arm spinner stole the show post-match with her dancing to Firework.

Ora, the first British female solo artist to achieve 13 singles in the UK Top 10, has been signed by the International Cricket Council to add to the sense of occasion in front of what is expected to be a capacity crowd at Lord’s.

The final, England’s first in the T20 format since 2018, has been made free to watch by Sky Sports on their Sky Mix channel. Australia pose a stiff challenge to England, having beaten them in all three previous meetings in a T20 World Cup final, in 2012, 2014 and 2018.

“It’s a huge occasion,” Sciver-Brunt said. “We’ve worked really hard to get to this point and I’m so excited to be able to walk through the Long Room with the girls and know that we’ve got each other’s backs.”