Alice Capsey is facing down a bowling machine spitting out balls at 80-plus miles per hour.
She's been frustrated by several deliveries staying low on one of the few suburban outdoor pitches available in London in late September. She's been hopping to a couple of toe-crushers as the machine is calibrated and recalibrated. She's grinned in pure appreciation at a couple of absolute jaffas which have shot into the top of her off stump.
But now she's found a bit of a groove - as much as one can against those speeds - taking more satisfaction from a few punches through the covers than the odd edge to the fence at deep third. So she asks her agent feeding the machine, former England batter Michael Lumb, to crank the dial up.
"I think we managed 85 in the end, which is pretty cool, but it was definitely pretty quick there in the 80s," Capsey tells Cricinfo. "I guess no female cricketer just yet is consistently bowling that, which as a top-order batter it's pretty nice. It was nice I could dictate where the ball was going to go.
"Going through the 70s, you expect yourself to hit it and it was getting a bit frustrating. Then once you got to the 80s and you were 81, 82, 83 and we were like, 'I must get to 84'… then I was like, 'all right we'll give 85 a go.' If we were indoors, I reckon I'd have carried on going and tried to get up to 90, see what that feels like, a little bit of what the men are used to."
Capsey is getting used to operating outside her comfort zone, relishing it, in fact.
When she returned from a pre-season training camp in Pretoria in March, head coach Charlotte Edwards called, asking if she'd like to prepare as England's back-up wicketkeeper.
Coming off an injury-hampered winter, Capsey was happy with where her batting was at in Pretoria as she pressed for selection in Edwards' T20 World Cup squad and, already an off-spin option, why not add another string to her bow? Never mind that she hadn't kept wicket since her junior days. This was another opportunity.
Taking the gloves for a warm-up match against India while Amy Jones, England's long-serving wicketkeeper, played as a batter, Capsey took a catch and pulled off a stumping to remove India's keeper, Richa Ghosh. At least she had one match's worth of experience should Jones go down injured during the World Cup.
Capsey wasn't required behind the stumps during the tournament but, by the end of the summer, she had kept tidily in three ODIs against Ireland with one excellent diving catch and two stumpings, one of those off a bouncer.
"Come the Ireland series, Lottie rang me and was like: 'Oh we're going to give you the gloves, how do you feel?' I was a bit nervous but really excited," Capsey says. "It was a really cool opportunity.
"It was a bit of an unknown, how I was actually going to go in a game - it's very different to in training. But all of the comms from Lottie, our keeping coach has all been really positive. I've really enjoyed it, which is the main thing. When you're enjoying something you can fully commit and give it your all.
"There's no doubt a few areas I'd love to work on and touch up on, but I like what our fielding coach/keeping coach has been saying, it's the start of the journey and we're only a couple of chapters into that book, and it's just about unfolding each chapter as it comes and not going too far ahead."
Jones was one of five senior players not selected for the Ireland series "in order to widen and deepen the pool of players for England Women in ODI cricket", the ECB said at the time. With Tammy Beaumont, England's previous back-up, now retired and Kira Chathli, the 27-year-old Surrey wicketkeeper, still uncapped while sitting on the fringes of selection this summer, calling on Capsey makes sense. That's not least given Capsey's contribution with the bat this year.
In ODI cricket, she made a run-a-ball 45 against New Zealand in the opening match of the international season, followed by an unbeaten 41 off 40 against Ireland at No. 4. These bookended an impressive run of T20I performances, including 74 not out off 50 balls while opening against New Zealand and 82 off 43 at No. 4 against India. Then, in their World Cup group-stage win over Scotland at Headingley, her 40 off 25 provided a neat curtain-raiser for fireworks from Freya Kemp and Dani Gibson.
"There haven't been too many conversations around what my role looks like next summer," Capsey says of her wicketkeeping future. "The biggest thing for me is that I want to be in the team and I want to be a mainstay in the team as a top-order batter. Primarily that's my first skill, that's the one that I want to win games of cricket with.
"Then I want to be seen as the genuine allrounder, whether it be I'm a top-order batter and I'm in the hot spots in the field, I'm bringing a bowling option or I'm behind the stumps.
"So from that regard, I don't know what that looks like, but what I'm really excited about is going through this winter being able to work and get some more time under my belt doing all four skills. It's been so much fun being able to pick it back up, develop that and see where it goes."
Capsey returned to bowling in the Hundred, taking five wickets for Birmingham Phoenix. When we meet, hot off her encounter with the bowling machine filming stunts as a Red Bull athlete, she is in the midst of a training block before heading to Australia to play for Sydney Sixers in the WBBL.
It wasn't so long ago that a hectic schedule weighed heavily on Capsey, now only just turned 22 but a seasoned pro, having made her franchise debut aged 16 before earning her first England cap the following year. Juggling franchise and England commitments prompted Capsey to opt out of regional games in 2024. This year, she went unsold in the WPL auction but, after that earlier experience, she can see it as a positive.
"That was a blessing in disguise, not getting picked for the WPL, because it meant I could dedicate three months almost, upping my skill development," she says. "It meant that I could go away and work on different things, I could watch back different videos, I could review everything.
"What was so pleasing, whether it be that first game against New Zealand in the T20s or the game against India where I got 80-odd, is that it all felt like it came together. Everything I'd been working towards over the last two-and-a-half years came together in those couple of innings where I had my tempo, I had the shot selection, my technique held up how I wanted.
"My template of how I wanted to go about T20 innings, that came through and it I felt like I ticked every box I'd been working on and that's then the outcome that I had. I had those two big innings, but I feel like I contributed the whole way through the World Cup in different games, whether it be with my running, whether it be just with playing my way, which was really positive and it gives me a lot of confidence. It felt like a really positive year."
Despite the heartbreak of finishing runners-up to Australia at a home T20 World Cup, Capsey also considers 2026 a positive year for the England team.
"What's awesome is that we've been able to find blocks to develop each format," she says. "There's been a massive focus this summer and winter on T20 cricket and it showed. Some of the games we were winning in the World Cup, and in the lead-up to that, were amazing.
"How we went about it during the World Cup, being undefeated until the final, that's a really good place to be and that's the first World Cup final I've been involved in, so really positive signs. It's a really special environment to be a part of, so we're all looking forward to what is going to be an exciting year next year."
That itinerary includes the first staging of the Women's Champions Trophy, in India in February, when six teams will compete across a fortnight-long competition, before attention turns to the 2027 Ashes. England were left licking their wounds after a whitewash in Australia two years ago, but will be buoyed by the memories of the 2023 home series, when they secured a thrilling draw in the points competition thanks to a clean sweep of the white-ball legs.
"It's busy," Capsey said. "I can only speak from the experience of that 2023 [Ashes] at home, but that was some of the most enjoyable five, six weeks of playing cricket that I've had in an England shirt, so we're all looking forward to that."
Edwards has already indicated her format-focused approach will continue into the Ashes, which opens with a one-off Test at Headingley, and said after the Ireland games that red-ball cricket would receive more attention than in the past.
Having played just one Test, a heavy defeat at the hands of India at Lord's in July, there's another challenge for Capsey. But then, she's already proved her willingness to take up the gauntlet, figuratively and literally.