'We haven’t lifted trophy since 2009 and we’d quite like to put that right' - Heather Knight gears up ahead of T20 World Cup

Ever since winning the inaugural edition of the Women’s T20 World Cup in 2009, England have failed to repeat the same heroics despite multiple attempts. However, skipper Heather Knight is determined to change England’s fortunes leading into the upcoming T20 World Cup in South Africa, which is slated to begin on February 10.

She revealed that the England team will play an aggressive brand of cricket in the tournament and also mentioned that they will back their strength to ensure they bring the trophy back to England.

“We haven’t lifted the trophy since 2009 and we’d quite like to put that right. We felt in a great place in 2020 before the rain intervened at Sydney but in many ways that feels like a lifetime ago, with COVID-19 entering the mix soon after."

"We want to be aggressive, we want to choose the positive option when the game’s in the balance and we want to entertain and inspire. We know on our day that we can be a match for anyone, our job now is to ensure we have our day as regularly as possible – to keep being aggressive, taking the game forward and backing our strengths,” said Knight in an ICC column.

Younger players coming to the fore and that’s an exciting sign for our future: Knight

Last year, the skipper was out of action for quite some time due to a hip injury. Nat Sciver too, missed a few matches as she was focusing on mental health. This gave an opportunity to a lot of younger players like Charlie Dean, and Alice Capsey among others to prove themselves on the big stage and they eventually made the most out of the oppotunities. Thus, Knight believes they now have a perfect balance of youth and experience to once again challenge for the title.

“Last summer we had a few players out, myself included, and while that was tough from a performance point of view it was quite valuable in terms of exposing some of our younger players and giving them the opportunity to showcase their skill on the big stage."

"That’s led to a group of younger players coming to the fore and that’s an exciting sign for our future. The likes of Charlie Dean, Lauren Bell, Alice Capsey and Maia Bouchier have their first shot at an ICC Women’s T20 World Cup, which we know they’ll relish. As well as that we’ve got a lot of senior players eager for T20 success,” Knight concluded.

For a better experience: Download the CricTracker app from the IOS App Store and Google Play Store