On the eve of The Ashes, England captain Heather Knight has stated her aim to “entertain and inspire” the next generation of cricketers, stating that - “we’ve got the opportunity to do something special and part of that is bringing the country with us on that journey.”
With the team announced a day out from the match, Knight’s selection reflected her new aggressive mantra, with two high-risk, high-reward debuts handed out to Lauren Flier and Danni Wyatt. Flier, 22, plays for Western Storm and was described by Knight as, “one of, if not the fastest” bowler in the country, whilst white-ball veteran Wyatt has been given free rein to play her shots in the middle-order.
“She’s one of the best attackers of spin in the world game for me,” said Knight on Wyatt’s selection after the 32-year-old, who has 245 white-ball caps to her name, edged out Danni Gibson to take the No.6 spot. “She makes it very tricky and scores in very unusual areas. So that’s exactly how we want her to play, how she does in white-ball cricket.
“We want to entertain,” said Knight, in words echoing the shift in ethos that the country has so enjoyed when watching Ben Stokes’ men’s team. “We want to play cricket that people want to watch. And obviously, playing a lot of white-ball cricket. That’s what comes naturally to us.”
England’s approach has evolved under Knight who has been captain since 2016, but the new aggressive approach was solidified with the arrival of new head coach Jon Lewis in the autumn of 2022.
“I think probably when I started out playing Test cricket, as a youngster, I felt like I had to go super defensive, it’s all about survival. And I’ve kind of learned as a batter that it’s all about scoring runs.
“I think when we do play red-ball cricket as women’s cricketers,” Knight said, “we feel like we’re fighting for the format a little bit sometimes. And we’ve talked about how actually, it’s really important that we do play cricket that people want to watch because we want future generations to be able to play Test cricket.
“One of our mantras as a group is to entertain and inspire. Particularly 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. Ultimately we do that by how we play on the pitch.”
Ticket sales continue to be incredibly strong for the series, with the latest figures showing a record-breaking 80,000 tickets have been sold in total for the multi-format competition, a figure that is already more than double the 32,000 people that attended the previous women’s Ashes in 2019.
The one-off Test at Trent Bridge has sold 14,500 tickets for the match, compared to 7,500 that attended the same fixture at Taunton in 2019.
“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 at 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.”
England XI: Beaumont, Lamb, Knight*, Sciver-Brunt, Dunkley, Wyatt, Jones+, Ecclestone, Cross, Filer, Bell
