Emerging England talent excites Cross ahead of Women's T20 World Cup

England will attempt to follow their T20 clean sweep of Pakistan by securing a 2-0 one-day international series win over the tourists in Chelmsford, east of London, on Wednesday.

England then face series in both white-ball formats against New Zealand and Ireland before heading to Bangladesh for the T20 World Cup in October, where they will look to dethrone champions and arch-rivals Australia.

"We've got a lot of youngsters coming through now," medium-fast bowler Cross said.

"I think the way Dani Gibson's stepped up in that T20 series (against Pakistan), opening the bowling and playing the role of a number seven that we'd want is really impressive.

"When you've got someone like (England's) Nat Sciver-Brunt as your blueprint to follow for the world's best all-rounder, then it's nice to have someone to role-model that."

The 32-year-old Cross, a veteran of 88 international appearances across all formats, added: "I think the way Lauren Bell has worked really hard on becoming a better bowler and trying to swing the ball both ways now, not just be an inswinging bowler and reduce her predictability for power-play bowling and stuff...The way she's gone out there and tried to do that in games is a really brave thing to do."

But Cross said it was important England maintained a ruthless edge throughout matches following last week's unconvincing 37-run ODI win against Pakistan in Derby.

"That's something we saw glimpses of in the Ashes (in 2023)," she said. "Obviously to go toe-to-toe with the best team in the world for the last 10 years (Australia) and beat them in two white-ball series was an incredible achievement...so we're doing a lot of really good things.

"But it's how do we keep that mindset positive all the time? That's something we're disappointed with from Derby, that we could have been a little bit more ruthless in some of those moments."