HEATHER Knight was probably ready to write off a “rubbish” 2025 under the halfway mark.
A winless Ashes tour in Australia in January, coming on the heels of England’s group-stage exit at the T20 World Cup just three months earlier, had cost her the captaincy before the start of the home summer. As if that weren’t enough, the 34-year-old then suffered a serious injury to her right hamstring in the first series since, against West Indies in May, casting major doubt over her ODI World Cup participation.
Opting out of surgical intervention that would sideline her for four to six months entirely, Knight chose an exhaustive rehabilitation route instead having once previously trusted it for a similar injury when she was 12 years younger.
This time around, it involved hyperbaric chamber therapy, “lots of pilates”, swimming and no running at all until England were less than three weeks out from their pre-tournament camp in Abu Dhabi. Oh, and a frustrating wait to resume sweeping – in order to avoid stressing the healing tendon – even as she resumed batting in training.
By the time she took guard again, few knew how far she’d come just to be there in national colours at the ODI World Cup perhaps one last time. But once the runs started to flow, so did the feeling like she was always meant to be here – anchoring England’s batting.
Experience has no match, and a stand-out example of this was in a late cut Knight played off Sree Charani in the 32nd over in an innings otherwise replete with sweep shots.
In fact one such cracking sweep was on the ball prior – to a full delivery around off, the batter got into the position early and beat the diving fielder at square leg fence with ease. Pre-empting the course-correction from the young left-arm spinner, Knight then waited on the backfoot for the short-and-wide follow-up, used the depth of the crease, and pierced the two fielders with perfection for four more. A promising half-century platform built by the second drinks break, now was the time to dictate.
And dictate she did, with an array of sweeps – conventional and reverse – to manipulate the field and transfer the pressure back onto the Indian spinners when shots down the ground weren’t proving as easy to hack.
After a watchful start, Rana had come under the attack in the early part of her spell as well. And, between the aerial one in the 26th over and the more authoritative slog-sweep in the subsequent one from the offie, the switch of gears from the Englishwoman was both palpable and ominous.
The back-to-back boundaries of Charani had put her in the 40s, and the fifty came with a reverse lap off Rana’s quicker one that Knight expertly placed wide of the short third fielder for it to race to the ropes. Once the half-century box was ticked, the acceleration was swift as she stitched a crucial 113-run stand with Nat Sciver-Brunt that laid the foundation for England’s match-winning 288. She went from 16 off 25 at one point, to a 54-ball fifty and eventually her fastest ODI hundred yet – in just 86 deliveries – all while putting on a masterclass in sweeping that even the experienced Indian offspinners had no answers to.
She started with a streaky one in Rana’s following over, but the top-edge had enough on it to clear the short-fine fielder. Knight closed the over with a reverse paddle – pickig the line and length early, kneeling down quickly and dispatching it to third region. Charani and Deepti Sharma both continued to err in their lines, making it a tad predictable for the experienced batter to keep putting them through short-fine for easy boundaries.
Among her 14 attempted sweep shots against spin in Indore, only a couple of them yielded no runs while 36 runs came off it in total – eight boundaries included – at a strike-rate of 257.14.
“It was a productive shot for me today,” Knight said after her Player of the Match efforts. “I just felt the threat with a little bit of hold in the wicket. I was finding it quite hard to hit down the ground and obviously India packed the sort of fielders on the leg side in front.
“So, it was a bit of a risk at times hitting down the ground – felt like I might chip a catch. My sweep was working and obviously the reverse is a shot that I’m really comfortable playing and just felt like it was on today.
“Sometimes it’s not always the conditions, but when a shot’s working for you on a certain day, just sticking with that and it seemed to work out quite well and yeah, more just like around manipulating fields and things like that is something that I have in my locker, and something that I work really hard on, particularly against off spin when we’re in turning conditions, albeit it didn’t turn as much today. But because of the conditions we’ve been in, I’ve been working pretty hard on trying to sweep and trying to use my different sweeps to manipulate the field. I don’t know the percentage of runs scored through it today, but it felt like quite a lot. But yeah, it was just working for me, and just felt like a go-to.”
Overall, in 26 shots, Knight has fetched 58 runs while sweeping, the most for any batter, at a staggering strike-rate of 223.07 this World Cup. Of those, only five were dots whereas 12 of her 20 boundaries so far have come via sweeps, conventional or reverse.
In Guwahati, in what was her first ODI innings since return, Knight had used the shot to good effect against Bangladesh to bail Egland from a tricky top-order collapse triggered by legspinner Fahima Khatun’s three-fer in the middle-overs.
Back then, she had attempted six sweep shots against spin, and fetched 18 off those – four boundaries and two singles – enroute a match-winning 79 off 111 after England were stuttering at 78 for 5 at one stage in a chase of 179.
Knight, in fact, has accumulated 174 runs off spin in this edition in three innings – the maximum among all batters, followed only by Alyssa Healy’s tally of 151. In stark contrast, England’s no. 5, 6, and 7 have struggled significantly, collectively managing just 103 runs for 12 dismissals against spin, averaging a mere 8.58. In that context, Knight’s century, along with her crucial partnership with Sciver-Brunt, stood out as the defining factor in Indore.
“I’ve had a pretty rubbish year, not going to lie, before this World Cup. So, I was really keen to try and make the most of it and try and enjoy just being here because obviously it was pretty tight to make it here,” Knight said of the race against time to make the World Cup. “I’ve made a real conscious effort to try and enjoy the trip and try and enjoy what I do and try and get the best out of myself in my batting through that enjoyment and just being happy to be here, really.
“Because I think sometimes you take it for granted when you’re kind of on the treadmill of international cricket and when you do get injured, you kind of have that bit of time to kind of reflect and realize how fun it is and the opportunities that you do get and I was really keen to try and make the most of the opportunities during this World Cup and obviously try and contribute as much as I can to the team being successful.”
In a high-stakes clash, her career-best 109 was wasn’t just the team’s ticket to the semifinals – it was a reaffirmation of why Knight has been England’s calmest head in any storm. Even after a season that nearly broke her. (Cricbuzz)