England Women’s cricket team captain Heather Knight is excited about hosting the Pakistan women’s team next month. Pakistan will tour England after eight years for a series featuring three T20 internationals followed by three One Day Internationals. In an exclusive interview with Geo News, Knight acknowledged Pakistan’s recent good form against New Zealand and expressed readiness for the upcoming matches. She emphasized that her team is fully prepared to face Pakistan and is not taking the matches lightly.
I don’t think it will be an easy run at all. They have just got a new captain in Nida Dar, some of the players are performing more consistently and they’ve had some really good results recently so it won’t be easy at all. We are expecting a tough match against them and hopefully, we can bring our game and entertain the crowd,” the England women’s team’s captain said.
Knight highlighted the talent within the Pakistan women’s team, singling out Fatima Sana as a player to watch. She noted being impressed by Sana’s performance in the FAIRBREAK cricket tournament and expressed excitement about facing her on home turf.
Fatima is a great kid and she’s got lots of energy enthusiasm, lots of passion. She is developing into a good bowler too so she is certainly the one to watch. I really get on with the girls in the Pakistan team especially with Fati (Fatima Sana) as I said and Nida is a really lovely girl too.
I always enjoy chatting with those girls and hearing what their life is like and how cricket is for them in their country. So it should be an exciting series and look forward to seeing them on English soil,” the English captain said.
The Pakistan women’s team has played in England a few times, most recently in 2022 during the Commonwealth Games. However, the England women’s team has never visited Pakistan.
In 2021, the English team was supposed to play three ODIs and two T20Is in Pakistan. However, the series was canceled by the ECB due to security concerns, as the England men’s team was scheduled to play two T20Is in Pakistan before heading to the UAE for the ICC T20 World Cup.
Since then, the England men’s squad has visited Pakistan twice in 2022, first for a seven-match T20I series and later for a three-match test series. However, the England women’s team’s tour has not been rescheduled. Heather Knight expressed uncertainty about the tour being rescheduled.
I’d love to go obviously isn’t in our future tours program for whatever reason at the moment I’m not sure why. Certainly would love to see it in the calendar so hopefully that can happen in the future,” she said.
Heather Knight has never been to Pakistan herself, but she’s now interested in visiting after hearing positive feedback from her fellow female cricketers who went there last year to play exhibition matches before the PSL.
Few of our girls went to the PSL and played in it like Danny Wyatt, Tammy Beaumont and others and they said it was a brilliant experience. It’s a country where I’d love to go to as it’s meant to be very beautiful and from what I’ve heard it’s really nice to visit.
The England women’s team captain shared that her all-time favorite cricketer from Pakistan is the former captain, Wasim Akram, as she admired his left-arm pace bowling skills.
The first game of the Pakistan women’s tour against England will take place at Edgbaston Stadium on May 11, 2024. Last year, during the women’s Ashes match between England and Australia, nearly 20,000 people attended, setting a new attendance record for women’s cricket in England. Over 10,000 tickets have already been sold for the Pakistan women’s game.
Knight is optimistic that the high ticket sales and the strong presence of the Pakistani community in Birmingham will lead to robust support for both teams during the match.
Obviously there’s a strong Pakistani community here in Birmingham so hopefully the support will be really good for both teams and looking forward to this. It’s gonna be a good series and excited to have them over here.
I heard that the Edgbaston game is in particular selling really well I think there’s been more than seventeen thousand tickets sold across the summer for women’s games already for us which is awesome. So we’d love to have their support for us, to get them behind us and hopefully, we will entertain them”, she added.
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) recently announced a new three-tier first-class system for women’s cricket. Eight first-class counties, including Durham, Essex, Hampshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Somerset, Surrey, and Warwickshire, have been granted Tier 1 status for their women’s teams starting from 2025. Additionally, two more county teams will join, expanding the total to 10 teams by 2027, with plans to further increase to 12 teams by the 2029 season.
Heather Knight, speaking about the new domestic structure, believes it will benefit female players by providing equal opportunities to thrive in the game, similar to their male counterparts.
Bringing more investment into the women’s game is really cool. I think it’s a huge opportunity for the countries as well. The growth of women’s cricket is gonna be huge and hopefully, that’s gonna lead to the counties and the game having more success, more money and more people playing which is really important”.
So yes a really good step up and it’s quite exciting to see how it would develop. I think it just simplifies things a little bit more, having like 1 club and 2 teams male and female and the most important thing is equal access to opportunity and facilities which hopefully this will bring,” the English skipper concluded.
