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England Captain, Heather Knight knows her side must hit the ground running when they take on West Indies in their first game of the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup tomorrow (Saturday February 11th).
The 2009 champions lost the opening match of the previous edition of this tournament in 2020 before recovering to reach the semi-finals.
They also suffered three defeats at the start of the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2022 before bouncing back to reach the final.
Knight will be leading her side for a third time in T20 World Cups and knows the importance of a good start.
“With T20 World Cups, we have learned previously, you don’t have enough time to make any slip-ups,” she said. “Obviously, we didn’t start particularly fast in that last World Cup in Australia, so it’s been a key focus for us all the time any series that we start.
“We want to really start fast, hit the ground running and almost go over the top in how we want to do things.
“We’ve talked about having a clear plan about how we want to do things, and being really brave with it.”
England previously faced the West Indies in a five-match series last December, with Knight’s side strolling to a clean sweep.
However, the Windies will be able to call on more of their experienced players and Knight knows they will be a force to be reckoned with.
She added: “It’s really important that we don’t think too much about that five-match series, I think this is quite a tough game for us.
“We’ve had a lot of success against them recently so we have to see it as a completely fresh game.
“The main thing that we’re going to do is do things how we want to do them. We’ll obviously have slightly different plans for different players, but I think our mentality wants to be about doing what we do best and then shifting slightly if we need to.”
Don’t forget that you can see England Women in action at the Cooper Associates County Ground this summer!
England take on Australia in a Women’s Ashes ODI on Tuesday July 18th and are selling well with the ground already at over 50% capacity!
It promises to be a clash to remember, so don’t miss out!
Adults tickets are currently available at the early-bird price of just £10, with juniors able to attend for £5 each.
Prices will rise from March 9th, so take advantage of the cheaper tickets now!
There is a special group offer of 10 tickets for the price of eight, plus a Family Ticket (two children go free with two paying adults).
Hospitality packages are also available to purchase now from just £25.
