A stress fracture is a bowler’s worst nightmare and Freya Kemp has had two of them before the age of 19.
The England all-rounder will make her major event debut at this month’s ICC Women’s T20 World Cup but only after two years of hard graft to come back from serious injury.
“It’s a huge honour to be picked in any squad, but especially for a World Cup,” said Kemp.
“It’s even more special given I missed the last one. It’s been a tough two years, but it makes it even better having had a slightly harder journey to get here.”
Kemp played her club cricket for Fletching in East Sussex and has an older and a younger brother.
“We used to play all sports in the garden, and they didn’t hold back, I can tell you that,” she remembers. “It was the same at the club, playing with my brother and all of his friends, it toughened me up.”
A prodigy, Kemp made her senior debut for Sussex in 2019 while still playing for U17 and U15 teams and was included in the England Women’s Academy programme as a 14-year-old.
She benefited from the counsel of two true greats – Sarah Taylor, a coach while Kemp was a pupil at Bedes School, and Charlotte Edwards, who took her under her wing at Southern Vipers.
“I watched Lottie while I was growing up, she was one of my idols,” said Kemp. “She has been a massive support to me throughout my career. She picked me up quite young and she has really helped me and mentored me through the last few years.”
Kemp broke through with breathtaking performances against the white ball in 2022, particularly with bat in hand, rewarded with a maiden T20I call-up and a place at the Commonwealth Games.
A seamless rise to the top looked set to follow, in a similar fashion to her team-mate Alice Capsey and others before her. But a couple of weeks after being awarded her first ECB central contract, disaster struck in the shape of a first, dreaded stress fracture in December 2022, ruling her out of the 2023 ICC Women’s T20 World Cup.
“It was tough and I didn’t really know what it meant,” said Kemp. “I was in the dark, but I knew it was going to take six to nine months – and the rest – to get back.
“I was gutted to miss out on the World Cup and it was something I had to deal with.”
Kemp dug in and fought her way back to excel in the 2023 season as a specialist batter and bowled her first international ball for more than a year on the tour of India in December.
Cruelly, on her return to England, she went for a scan and was diagnosed with another stress fracture.
“It’s very hard, there’s no beating around the bush,” said Kemp. “It’s very hard to trust your body and I’m just trying to break that cycle. I have to trust it and the people around me.”
Kemp has reworked her run-up and her workload is being very closely managed, limiting the number of deliveries she bowls each week, a delicate dance choreographed by England’s sports science and medicine team.
“I’m just thankful for all of the people around me, my family, my friends, my team-mates and all of our support staff,” she said. “I couldn’t do it without them and they’re in this process with me.”
Kemp has all of the tools to be a key contributor for England as they bid to capture the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup title for the first time since the inaugural edition in 2009.
She is still relatively inexperienced at touring, with trips to West Indies and India under her belt, sharing a flat with seasoned seamer Lauren Bell in the UK.
Flatmates Kemp and Bell are the only two frontline seamers named in the squad because Jon Lewis and team have tooled up for spin-friendly conditions, adding left-armer Linsey Smith to the formidable trio of Sophie Ecclestone, Sarah Glenn and Charlie Dean.
Stoked by the struggles of the last two years, Kemp is ready for whatever is thrown at her.
“Obviously Dubai and Sharjah can be quite different as venues,” she said. “They’re relatively similar but there are differences, so it’s just getting used to those, adapting quickly and assessing and communicating well as a team.
“We want to play to our strengths and put our own spin on it. I just want to be there when the team needs me and to try to make an impact.”
