Heather Knight wants England to exploit the increased exposure from a seminal Women’s Ashes series, insisting she and her team take a responsibility to inspire the next generation “personally”.
England will try to wrestle the urn from all-conquering Australia’s grasp in the multi-format series, beginning with a lone Test at Trent Bridge where around 15,000 tickets have been sold across five days.
On the eve of the curtain-raiser, Knight senses an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the England football team, who sent the nation into raptures with their triumphant Euro 2022 campaign.
Doing so will be no mean feat as Australia have not lost to England since 2014, hold both limited-overs World Cups and won gold at last year’s Commonwealth Games, but Knight is in an optimistic mood.
She said: “One of our mantras is to entertain and inspire. In the women’s game, we take it quite personally that we want to promote the game in the right way, get people behind us and inspire them.
“It’s super special and it’s set up to be a really amazing Ashes series that’s probably going to be the most visible series outside of World Cups that we’ve ever had. We’re keen to try and maximise that.
“Women’s sport is just in such an amazing place in the country in the moment and we want to be a part of that. What the Lionesses did last summer, we loved watching it and want to be a part of that.
“We know we’re up against a very good Australian team but we’ve got the opportunity to do something special and part of that is bringing the country with us on that journey.”
