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Louise Thomas
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England captain Heather Knight feels fully focused on leading her side in the T20 World Cup as she looks to move on from being sanctioned for appearing in ‘blackface’ at a fancy dress party in 2012.
A photograph of Knight, then 21, was unearthed on Facebook recently which led to her being reprimanded and given a suspended £1,000 fine by the Cricket Discipline Commission after she admitted a charge of bringing the game into disrepute.
In a statement last month, Knight, England captain since 2016, said she was “truly sorry for the mistake” she made and had “long regretted it”, while Dave Lewis, the interim director of the Cricket Regulator, accepted there was “no racist intent in her conduct”.
After a warm-up camp in the United Arab Emirates, England will start their T20 World Cup campaign against Bangladesh in Sharjah on Saturday. Knight, 33, feels “the line has already been drawn” regarding her sanction and believes the squad are fully focused on the challenges ahead.
“It was obviously something that has been ongoing the last couple of months and it is something, as far as I am concerned, that has been addressed, and something that was a long time ago, so it hasn’t been in my mind at all,” Knight said.
“The line has already been drawn, in my opinion, so I am really excited obviously for what is to come (at the World Cup).
“We have got super supportive group, there is no doubt about that, so yeah, (I am) pretty happy to get cracking with the cricket.”
England enjoyed a fine white-ball summer, winning 13 of 14 matches, and were only denied a full sweep by one fixture being rained off.
Drawn into Group B also alongside Scotland, South Africa and West Indies, hopes have been lifted of England going on to claim a first global trophy since the 2017 50-over World Cup.
Knight feels her squad have shown enough quality to make an impact in the tournament, with rivals Australia looking to extend their run of winning the previous three titles.
“We take a huge amount of confidence from the way we played this summer. The way we have evolved as a side has been brilliant,” Knight said.
“We feel like we have added a little bit of smartness alongside the way we want to play, and I think that is going to be really important on these pitches.
“There are going to be times where we are going to have to sort of graft a little bit, the boundaries are big and there might be times when we get on slow wickets where we are going to have to adapt to what is in front of us and be really smart with how we go about things.
“I think we have done that brilliantly – probably that series against New Zealand in particular – just finding different ways to win and having different people stand up at different times.
“I don’t think it adds pressure, I think it has given us a load of confidence that when we play our best cricket then we can beat anyone.”
