With less than a week to go for the much-awaited India-England Test match, both teams will be looking to put their best foot forward and set the tone for the multi-format series. It will be important for the players to showcase that they can play the longest format and if at all the Test is able to generate a result, there is seldom any doubt that it will do a world of good for women’s Test cricket.
Unlike the Ashes that is played between Australia and England, which has a Test match between the T20I and ODI series, India and England will play a Test right at the start of the series. Australia and England were criticized for the conservative approach in the Taunton Test that was played in 2019 during the last Ashes which ended in a draw.
🗨️ Skipper Heather Knight in her chat with Cricbuzz says – “Will be a big test for us against very strong Indian side.”#ENGWvINDW #ENGvIND pic.twitter.com/Cz4yhmAsel
— Female Cricket (@imfemalecricket) June 10, 2021
Talking about the Ashes, the England skipper Heather Knight was quoted by Cricbuzz saying, “That was a different situation, that was a middle period of the Ashes. This is the first game of the multi-format point system that we are going to be playing for this India series. We’re going to be doing as much as we can to win. Sometimes it’s tricky when you play Test cricket so rarely to know exactly what to do in that situation, we haven’t been put regularly in those situations, we don’t play any multi-inning cricket domestically, we are finding our feet a little bit as we go. We’ll always look to, if we can, if the opportunity is there to go out and win.”
With respect to captainship and taking on India in the upcoming series, Knight stated, “Captaining as well can be tricky when we are so used to play white ball cricket, so getting used to the different ebbs and flows of the game, the different decisions you have to make, I think it’ll be more exciting as well just to have fans in and people watching which we haven’t had for a long time, it feels like a proper start to a home summer. I think it’s going to be a sense of occasion down in Bristol. There’ll be nerves but more excited to get going, I’m sure the Indians will have a few nerves as well having not played a Test match in seven years. But same for both teams. We always want to put on a show, because we haven’t had fans in there for so long. India are a very strong side and naturally there’ll be a contest there and they’re going to be hard to beat so I guess that’ll hopefully be fun to watch.”
This article is an excerpt of the original article published on Cricbuzz
I am a former cricketer having represented Mumbai University at All India University level. I was a part of MCA probables for the U-19 and U-23 age group. I have been an avid cricket writer for the last five years. Currently I am pursuing my Ph.D from IIT Bombay.