Ellyse Perry Misses Meeting Jude Bellingham for a Human Reason

Jude Bellingham’s arrival at Edgbaston during The Hundred was supposed to be one of those made-for-Instagram moments. A Real Madrid superstar, back in the Midlands, part-owner of Birmingham Phoenix, shaking hands with the captain of his women’s side. Cricket’s crossover with football glamour, neatly packaged.

It never happened.

Ellyse Perry, the face of the Phoenix women’s team and one of the sport’s modern greats, missed her chance to meet the England midfielder. Not because of a clash of schedules. Not because of media duties. Because she desperately needed the toilet.

The story surfaced on No Balls: The Cricket Podcast, when Alexandra Hartley asked Perry the obvious question: had she met Bellingham?

“I didn’t,” came the flat reply. No dressing it up, no attempt to gloss over it. Hartley and co-host Kate Cross pushed for the details, and the explanation was as unglamorous as it gets.

“I have a feeling; I came off the field, and I was absolutely busting to go to the toilet,” Perry admitted.

While Bellingham was working the room, meeting players and staff at Edgbaston, the Phoenix captain was making a far less glamorous sprint. By the time she emerged, the moment had gone.

Perry could at least see the funny side. She pointed out the irony of how these things usually work in a dressing room. When a celebrity visit is on the cards, teams often need volunteers to go and do the handshakes, the photos, the small talk.

“Normally you know it's sort of like you need a few volunteers to go and do something particular, and sometimes that can be like pulling teeth, but does anyone fancy Jude?” she said on the podcast.

Cross didn’t miss her cue. “I think she disappointed most girls that day,” she quipped, summing up the reaction of just about every listener.

Behind the humour sits a serious piece of business for Birmingham Phoenix and for The Hundred. Bellingham, who grew up in Stourbridge and came through Birmingham City’s academy, took a 1.2 per cent equity stake in the Phoenix earlier this year. The holding is split evenly between Warwickshire County Cricket Club and Knighthead Capital Management, with Warwickshire valuing the slice at around one million pounds.

The England international’s involvement went through the ECB’s approval process despite a five-year lock-in period for new investors in The Hundred franchises. Phoenix chief executive Stuart Cain has previously said Bellingham loved cricket as a youngster and had been keen to get involved since the competition first opened itself up to outside backers.

His buy-in reshaped the club’s ownership picture. Warwickshire retained 50.4 per cent control, Knighthead held 48.4 per cent, and the county valued its own majority stake at 48 million pounds. The numbers are stark, but the impact runs beyond balance sheets.

Bellingham gives Phoenix something most franchise teams can only dream of: global reach. A 22-year-old Real Madrid midfielder, one of the faces of modern football, now attached to a cricket team in The Hundred. Every appearance at Edgbaston drags new eyes towards the competition, new headlines, new curiosity from fans who might never otherwise glance at a Phoenix scorecard.

On the field, though, the story hasn’t yet matched the off-field noise. Birmingham Phoenix remain one of the sides still searching for a first title in either the men’s or women’s competitions. Perry leads the women, Jacob Bethell the men in 2026, both chasing the piece of silverware that would finally anchor the franchise’s growing profile in something tangible.

For now, the most talked-about moment between owner and captain is the one that never happened, lost somewhere between the boundary rope and the bathroom.

If Phoenix do finally catch fire next season and make a deep run, there will be more cameras, more visits, more chances for those crossover pictures that marketing departments dream of. The question is simple: when Jude Bellingham next walks into that dressing room, will Ellyse Perry make it out of the toilet in time?