Player Profile
From Stockport to Scotland, and soon - fingers crossed - to playing in a T20 World Cup on home soil.
Off-spinner Olivia Bell - Liv if you want - has already played in one World Cup, in the UAE in late 2024. Now, she is eyeing another.
The Scots have qualified for this summer’s tournament in England, when they will play group matches against Ireland and Sri Lanka at Emirates Old Trafford.
At the start of 2026, Bell helped her country advance to the main event thanks to a successful qualifying campaign in Nepal. She struck twice in seven appearances.
And she has now taken 29 wickets in as many limited overs international appearances since debuting in September 2022.
In the build-up to the Nepal qualifier, she returned a stunning 5-8 from four overs, having taken the new ball, in an Emerging Nations Trophy clash with Thailand in Bangkok in November 2025.
It is her best recorded return in any cricket, junior or senior.
Despite being born in Stockport, Bell’s heritage means she qualifies for the North of the Border nation.
Bell’s career has not been straightforwards, with injuries biting.
She only played a handful of friendlies for Lancashire during the second half of the 2025 summer, for example, as she returned to full fitness.
The now 22-year-old made her senior debut for Thunder in regional cricket in 2023, claiming 25 wickets in only eight matches in both the Charlotte Edwards Cup and the Rachael Heyhoe Flint Trophy.
That haul included a trio of four-wicket hauls; two in the RHFT 50-over competition and one in the CE Cup T20 campaign as Thunder reached Finals Day.
Bell’s form for Thunder earned her the club’s young player-of-the-year award, and she will not forget her maiden appearance at a World Cup in 2024 in a hurry. She claimed four wickets in as many matches in Sharjah and Dubai.
Bell came through the Cheshire age-groups, playing Under 13s to Under 18s cricket for them before joining Thunder’s Academy in 2022.
She claimed 5-34 from eight overs in a 40-over County Cup game for Cheshire Under 18s against their Lancashire counterparts at Leigh in June 2021.
Current team-mate Seren Smale was in Red Rose colours that day.
You wonder how big an impact that performance had on her arrival at Emirates Old Trafford.
Bell is a bowler who has admitted that keeping it simple was key to her early success in senior cricket for the Red Rose, saying: “I have been speaking to Sophie (Ecclestone) and Ellie (Threlkeld) about things, and there is something to be said for bowling straight in a T20.
“If you are hitting the stumps, there is every mode of dismissal available. That’s all I’ve tried to do.”