Connor - back to the day job

It's been an exceptional year for England captain Clare Connor. She is used to breaking new ground - in the 1980s, she became the first girl to play for a public school XI as a pupil at Brighton College - but she has undergone a huge amount of change, both in her personal life and her cricket career, since England last faced South Africa.

Connor has two major passions: cricket and teaching. This summer she left her teaching post at Brighton College to take up a new career with the award-winning Channel 4 team. She is the first woman to commentate on TV, adding her voice to the npower Test Series and Twenty20 Cup, and she enthuses about her time spent with the likes of Richie Benaud and Michael Atherton.

"With broadcasting I'm learning so much and I'm really enjoying it. I've had to be successful in cricket to get here and it feels like the next stage to everything I've done so far. I love cricket and it feels great to be working in a cricket environment. All I want to do is prove I can do it. Being famous doesn't appeal but being good at what I'm doing really appeals. Whatever happens, I think I can handle it."

Her presence on Channel 4 has, undoubtedly, provided women's cricket with a raised profile as she shares her wealth of cricketing knowledge with fellow enthusiasts across the country despite some gentle jibes from fellow teachers: "I've had colleagues saying I'm a celebrity - get me out of the staffroom!"

Playing the game and leading England, however, is what Clare loves most. She comes into the npower Test Series with her captaincy on the ascendancy having last month led Sussex to the Frizzell Women's County Championship crown for the first time, so the sabbatical from teaching to play and work in cricket already seems to be paying off.

England, like their captain, are on the way up. Connor took over the captaincy during an unsuccessful tour of New Zealand and Australia in January 2000, in which England were dominated in all areas of the game. Ranked fifth at the World Cup that year, the team are now ranked third following the World Series in New Zealand this past winter. More importantly, the momentum is with England.

Connor will need all the experience that captaining her country has given her over the past three and a half years as England field a youthful squad to face South Africa. In addition to changes in team personnel, Connor is adjusting to the loss of the head coach John Harmer, who has returned to his native Australia and a high-profile coaching job at the ACB's famous Academy in Adelaide.

Connor feels lucky to have worked with him, even just for two years: "He taught us all so much, and made cricket and playing cricket simple with an over-arching philosophy of enjoying ourselves. When I saw Lucy bowl and Charlotte bat during the winter, I realised they were having the time of their cricket lives."

One thing the England team has following the Connor/Harmer years is confidence. Their finest hour was against the all-conquering Australia in February where England narrowly lost the first Test and drew the second with blistering bowling performances by Lucy Pearson in particular. At The Gabba, Pearson rattled the Australian free-scoring batters; in Sydney, she demolished them, taking 7-51 in the first innings and a world record-equalling 11-wicket haul in the Test.

A constant Connor has to rely on is her friend and vice-captain Charlotte Edwards, England's leading run-scorer. Edwards also struck gold Down Under and proved a return to full fitness following career-threatening cruciate ligament damage which kept her out of the game for a year in 2001.

There are also two World Cup winners in the squad. Clare Taylor and Jane Smit were victorious at Lord's in 1993 as freshers in the squad. Now, Taylor is the first Englishwoman to take over 100 international wickets and has not missed a series for England in the intervening years, while Smit shares the record for most dismissals by a keeper in the women's one-day game.

The youngsters provide the perfect foil to the senior players expected to perform. Two exciting seam bowlers burst on to the international stage last year, Isa Guha (Berkshire) and Laura Spragg (Yorkshire); the first quiet, thoughtful and deadly accurate, the other explosive with match-turning capabilities.

Kent has produced yet another class batter following in the Edwards mould. Seventeen year-old Lydia Greenway hit a stylish 88 against Australia A on her full England debut over the winter, and maintained that form in the ECB's Super Fours competition to secure her place. Connor's Sussex team-mate, Rosalie Birch, also makes the step up from the hugely successful England U19 team - who toured for the first time this winter - to the full squad and Beth Morgan from Middlesex gains a first call-up having represented England at U17 and U21 level. Hannah Lloyd, who had not played for England since making her debut in 2001, also gains a recall.

Connor thinks England have the perfect mix of youthful exuberance and solid experience now, with a backbone in the team strong enough to give some licence to the talented newcomers. "With Super Fours and the England U19s gaining international experience, there is a clear pathway for players who perform to get selected for the England squad and players have earned the right to play international cricket. Competition for places has been tougher that at any time since I became captain. It's exciting, and after some competitive domestic cricket this season, we're all looking forward to pulling on our England shirts again."

As well as some bright young players, England women's cricket welcomes two new major sponsors on board. The npower women's Test series and NatWest Women's Series signals the start of a new era under Head Coach Richard Bates which, like the England team, is built on the strengths of what's gone before and enhanced by the prospect of new and exciting times ahead.

The last time South Africa played in England in 2000 they lost a closely contested series of one-day matches 3-2, and in the World Cup later that year beat England into fifth place. As Connor can testify, plenty has changed since then.