‘We became a bit of a smarter team’ – Heather Knight reflects on England women’s aggressive mindset

Heather Knight. (Photo Source: Gareth Copley/Getty Images)

For over a year and a half, the Heather Knight-led England women’s team has been putting in excellent performances. Adapting to a newer and more aggressive playstyle, England women have become smarter, according to the skipper.

Ever since Jon Lewis became the head coach of the side in 2022, the vision of the side has been clearer than ever. Believing in playing a hyper-aggressive brand of cricket, the tactics seem to be working for the side so far.

As England women look to host New Zealand women in three ODIs starting next week, followed by five T20Is, the side’s skipper, Heather Knight, opined that England women have become smarter and will take on the White Ferns with knowledge from their previous encounters.

“We became a bit of a smarter tea, we played on bigger boundaries, wickets that did a little bit more in the powerplay, so it wasn’t really easy to attack then. We learned how to be a bit smarter and how to adapt a little bit to different conditions,” Knight told ESPNcricinfo.

“Sometimes it’s going to be hard to attack in the powerplay, the idea was to sort of go from ball one and keep the foot down, but that isn’t always going to be possible and sometimes there’s going to be little bumps along the road, but I think we learned a lot from that tour,” she added.

Our job is just to keep getting better: Knight

It is worth noting that they have lost only two of their 13 completed ODIs since the start of December 2022 and have won 21 of the 27 T20Is that they have played in this time frame. According to Knight, England women have had a lot to learn from their recent series against Pakistan as well.

“Our job is just to keep getting better, keep playing cricket that we want to play and also winning those games when it’s tough, You look at that Derby game, it wasn’t probably the most exciting to watch sometimes, I guess in that case it is just about punching out results and trying to say, look, it wasn’t quite the perfect wicket to be able to play how we wanted to, but being smart with it and adapting to what’s in front of us,” Knight said.