For Lauren Bell, cricket just happened. Naturally athletic and competitive, she dabbled in multiple sports for the fun of it while growing up. A lot of football and a little bit of cricket. Playing for England wasn't always a goal. It just happened.

"If you asked probably like 7-8-year-old Lauren, she would be in a full football kit running around with the shin pads on," Bell tells ESPNcricinfo in Guwahati. "My grandad always brought us Manchester United kits, and I was always in the garden playing football. Like kids spend their time doing different things, what I found fun was playing sports."

Bell played for Reading FC from when she was eight. She also played cricket at the time, and her parents took her to training for both sports. It was in 2017, after the second edition of the Kia Super League (KSL), that Southern Vipers offered 16-year-old Bell a contract for their winter training programme and to then play for them in the summer. Training was on Saturday mornings, the same time as her football games.

"My parents were like, you need to choose because we can't physically get to these two places," Bell says. "That was when I made the decision that I would follow cricket. I haven't played football since, which is a bit sad, but I've not really looked back since then."

Bell is about six feet tall, nicknamed 'The Shard'. She bowls at a good pace and has a mean inswinger. However, she used to lose her footing and fall to her left during her bowling action, which gave her a bit of back pain. Last year, she worked hard to remodel her action, and she can now swing the ball both ways.

"I don't think I was really aware that being this tall is a massive advantage for me," Bell says. "When I was a kid, I was so much taller than everyone. So obviously, as a fast bowler, that's going to bring its advantages. But I never thought, 'oh, I'm tall, I'm going to do this'. It just all fell into place.

"As I became a professional, I actually started to learn my craft. Before then, you worked on your talent, and you've already been coached, but you don't learn about the intricacies of fast bowling and bowling action. Only since I've started learning about my skill set and I guess the intricacies of my action, have I learned that obviously my height and the balance I can get in the extra bounce and how I play differently to other seamers. It's obviously a big advantage for m  o, or it makes me different to other girls and fast bowlers in the game."

Once she understood the advantage her height gave her, she worked hard on improving her speed and controlling ng swing.

"I take the new ball and swinging the ball is a big skill of mine and one of my biggest advantages," Bell says. "My coaches and I always talk about the three massive things - pace, bounce and movement. If you've got them, then you're going to be a really hard bowler to face. With my height, I can get bounce, and if I keep working on my strength, I can increase my pace. I can swing the ball, and hopefully I'll keep progressing to moving the ball both ways. Swing, pace and bounce are probably where I'm most threatening."

It is not just her bowling that differentiates Bell from most other cricketers. She likes to make a statement with her hairstyle, which has inspired many young players to wear their hair in plaits like she does, and wants to see women cricketers embrace their "girly" side.

"I've always liked doing my hair," Bell says. "I remember vividly when I first played with plaits in my hair. I played in a [T20] World Cup with plaits and then played in the Hundred in England, a nd I was meeting these girls, and they were obviously there for the cricket. But so many of them had matching hair, like they had their hair in plaits. I was meeting the mums, who were like, 'I have to do this hairstyle for my daughter every day now'. Stuff like that is part of the reason that I love playing and having the platform to inspire these young girls.

"I want cricket to be seen as cool and mainstream, and you can be girly and do your hair and wear whatever you like and play cricket. You don't have to be like a certain type of personnel. When I was growing up, it was like a boy sport, which has changed over time. This is one thing that I'm passionate about and I care about, ait nd doesn't affect my cricket in any way. If anything, it reaches an audience that someone else might not reach."

Bell is a graduate in sociology and criminology. She completed her degree before her England debut but worked on her dissertation while being involved in the Women's Ashes and the 2022 ODI World Cup as a standby.

"When I was at school, my parents were really keen for me to go to Bradfield College and do really well at my A levels and study really hard," she says. "I always wanted to do whatever my sister did, and she went to uni, so that was always going to happen. My A levels were good, and then I went to Loughborough.

"I chose Loughborough with cricket in mind as well because it made training easier. But when I started at Loughborough, I wasn't a professional cricketer. I wanted to just study something I enjoyed. I didn't know what I wanted to do, but after uni, if I wasn't a cricketer, I just wanted to study something that I thought I enjoyed."

With Covid-19 impacting cricket in 2020 and 2021, her first two years at university were relatively easier, in that she did not have to juggle cricket and coursework. But her third year was a challenge, when she was picked for England A's tour of Australia just before the Women's Ashes.

"It was hard, especially on tour when you're touring such amazing countries like New Zealand, and you have a dissertation to write. It's tricky to turn down the social part and the exploring. It was the first time I'd been to Australia and New Zealand. So you want to obviously see it, but I also knew that I needed to get this dissertation written, and I needed to study and keep up with my lectures. Because of COVID, everything was online, and I managed to get through. I had a lot of support and a few extensions on deadlines. I'm glad I did it and graduated, but it was tricky."

Since her debut in July 2022, no England fast bowler has taken more wickets in women's ODIs than Bell's 40. Kate Cross was close with 39, but she was left out of the World Cup squad, elevating Bell as the leader of the pace attack. In England's first two games at the 2025 World Cup, Bell took 1 for 24 in four overs against South Africa and 1 for 28 in seven overs against Bangladesh, on slightly sticky surfaces in Guwahati.

"It is responsibility; it's how I really thrive," she says. "When Heather [Knight] was captain and now Nat [Sciver-Brunt] is the captain, I think the more responsibility I'm given and the more clarity I have on the importance of my role, the more I thrive. I really enjoy taking those opportunities, being the bowler to make an impact or leading the seam attack. It gets the best out of me. I really enjoy it and every time I get a chance to do it, it's great."

As England travels to Colombo to play Sri Lanka on what could be a slow surface, the once-football-crazy Bell will have another opportunity to show off her new-ball skills. England will hope that just happens.