England women's cricket captain Heather Knight has heaped praise on her youthful Sydney Thunder counterpart Phoebe Litchfield.
Thunder lead a congested WBBL ladder outright on eight points, two ahead of five other teams, after notching a fourth straight win on Sunday.
They beat local rivals the Sydney Sixers by 18 runs In front of more than 5000 spectators at the SCG.
Knight, who will leave next week because of imminent England commitments in South Africa, has been a key part of the Thunder's early success,
Her classy 50 off 31 balls against the Sixers made it 185 runs from four innings at an average of more than 61, notching two half-centuries, a 48 and a 28.
Knight is enjoying focusing on her batting without the responsibilities of captaincy, with 21-year-old Australian representative Litchfield leading the Thunder.
Litchfield has scored 182 runs at an average of 36 and has only once been dismissed for less than 34 in five innings.
"She's been great and I think the biggest thing is she is scoring runs, which is your number one job as captain - it's not easy to captain when you are doing that," Knight said.
"I think the biggest thing that's impressed me is she hasn't changed too much as a person.
"I think sometimes you can try to be someone you're not or try and change things because you feel like you should.
"But she's been that same sort of bubbly, energising girl that she is when she's not captain, so that's a really good sign."
In-form spinner Samantha Bates took 3-22 against the Sixers to regain top spot on the competition's wicket-taking table, ahead of fellow spinner Alana King.
She bowled Australian representative Ashleigh Gardner, who had threatened to snatch victory from the Thunder with her first significant score of the WBBL campaign, 49 off 36 balls.
"I think today is so important for me for the rest of the series because I got to spend quite a bit of time out there and took a lot of confidence out of that as well," Gardner said.
