Now part of a tour to New Zealand in which her side will embark on a three-match ODI series off the back of a dominant 4-1 victory in the T20I leg, Filer is still eager to learn everything she can.
“It was probably about a year and a half, maybe just over 18 months ago, I got sacked from my job in a supermarket and obviously I’ve not really looked back since,” Filer said. “It’s been a whirlwind 18 months or so, and I think having that background has sort of made me work even harder. I’ve not wanted to look back and I just want to keep growing.”
Filer got the chop in the lead-up to Christmas 2022, ostensibly because she was spending too much time playing cricket, and not enough putting the shift-work in. However, hindsight clearly shows that her priorities were spot on.
“It’s obviously a strange story, it’s probably not similar to most other people,” she said. “I feel like a lot of people come into cricket quite young and I was quite young, but I don’t think I got necessarily the professional side of cricket until a year ago. So yeah, it’s a bit strange, but it’s so good to be where I’m now.”
“I think it was the professionalism coming into the game,” Filer added. “I received a contract about five, maybe six, months before I got my England call-up, so I think that really helped. It made me have a winter where I could build up and use the coaches, use the skills and have training full-time.
“That really helped me progress within a few months of actually then being able to go to these England camps and try and show what I can do, and I think I did that. I obviously wasn’t expecting the call-up at all during the Ashes, but when it happened it was great and England have supported me along with Western Storm through that. I just want to try and keep improving and getting better.”
“I saw Nat bowling in the warm-up and thought she’d have a good day,” Filer said. “She was hitting line and length, swinging the ball and it just looked great, so when she started bowling and kept them down, I wasn’t surprised at all.
“To have her bowl… especially in the powerplay is phenomenal and it’s something you kind of take for granted when you’re at the other end, especially when I’m probably one of the people that might leak runs a little bit more than that, so it’s good to have someone like that at the other end.
“And obviously Eccles is again a great player. She doesn’t really have a game without performing with either the ball or bat or taking an amazing catch, like she did off her bowling. They’re both outstanding players and I think it’s very hard to keep them out of the game when they do come back into an England shirt.”
“I’m a relatively new, fresh face and I think we’ve had a few other fresh faces come in,” Filer said. “The mighty Boosh [Bouchier], as we call her, she’s in some great form, hitting loads of bombs, and with that and obviously with the senior players as well, we’re heading in the right direction. I think we can only go up from here.”
Valkerie Baynes is a general editor, women’s cricket, at ESPNcricinfo
