England are displaying enviable bowling depth ahead of their crucial game against the West Indies

England tested their pace and spin combinations to devastating effect before heading to Dubai for the crucial final group game of this T20 World Cup against the West Indies on Tuesday.

Heather Knight, England’s captain, noted ahead of Sunday’s 10-wicket win over Scotland that while an enviable attack comprising four frontline spinners had served her team well, Seam had been effective in both venues.

In fact, seam bowling was more effective than spin throughout the tournament, with wickets being three runs cheaper for seam bowling than spinners and two balls fewer.

So Linsey Smith, the standout player with the ball in England’s opening win over Bangladesh, made way for Lauren Bell, who took 1 for 16 from her four overs as her side shared wickets 3-3 between seam and spin.

Sophie Ecclestone, Smith’s fellow left-armer, was the only multiple wicket-taker with 2 for 13, while offspinner Charlie Dean and seamers Nat Sciver-Brunt and Dani Gibson chipped in with one each.

It was the perfect complement to test out her theory. Scotland had struggled in their previous three games, despite a gutsy performance against Bangladesh in their tournament opener.

Scotland started reasonably well, managing to keep a meager powerplay intact and reaching their highest total of the tournament at 109 for 6, but failed to get going as England’s bowlers kept them under control.

Smith’s low trajectory proved particularly problematic for the opposition batsmen on a low and slow pitch in Sharjah, while playing with two left-arm spinners was a good match against South Africa, which they beat on the same ground where England had their first three players has played games. Similarly, New Zealand legspinner Amelia Kerr had taken six wickets from two matches in Sharjah.

But when the pitch showed signs of being better suited to seaming – and even swinging, as the miserly Megan Schutt showed with her two three-wicket hauls from Australia’s first two games – the evidence spoke for England’s change .

Bell had spent the English summer working with fast bowling coach Matt Mason to overhaul her behavior during the series against Pakistan and New Zealand, and after missing the first two games of that World Cup, she was to the team’s delight it’s turn. Buddy Maia Bouchier.

“We’ve seen so much improvement in her,” Bouchier said. “She also worked really hard on her outside swing and really completely changed her action. She put in a lot of time and effort and talked to Lewy (head coach Jon Lewis) and Mase about what she could do to get better and she actually took that on herself, which was really cool to see.

“Working on all these variations, which are really important in these conditions, it’s so important that she does it and a lot of other girls do it too, but she performed really well today.”

Bouchier himself got into good form after two meager outings with bats 23 and 8.

She scored an unbeaten 62 and Danni Wyatt 51 without failing in setting a modest 110-run target against Scotland in the 10 overs needed to keep South Africa top of Group B in terms of net runs -Rate to overtake was wiped out with one game to go. England still need to beat the West Indies to secure a place in the semi-finals.

“We knew it would be a game that we would take advantage of and put in a really good performance ahead of the games to come. We had to make sure it was strong and also think about the net ratio,” Bouchier said. “We just wanted to get it done as quickly as possible.”

“We really haven’t talked about what might happen,” she added. “We talked a lot about the present and focused on each game, and no matter what comes, we will focus on what happens next.”

“We could think about who we’re playing and what’s going to happen, but I think that goes against our thought process. Whoever we play, we just want to play that day.”

Bouchier took her improved performance in stride.

“I’ve been working a lot in the nets over the last year or so on watching and reacting to the ball and my processes … making sure I’m really calm in the crease,” she said. “That was the pitch for it. These pitches worked quite well for my game. Today was just a really dominant performance from both of us, Danni and I, and also the bowlers, they showed their class.”

Wyatt is England’s leading run-scorer of the tournament so far, fourth overall behind Tazmin Brits and Laura Wolvaardt. India captain Harmanpreet Kaur lies between the two opening games in South Africa. Wyatt has 135 runs at an average of 67.50 and a strike rate of 123.85.