Heather Knight has faced some stiff challenges in her five years as England captain, but the four-month odyssey down under – when her side will first attempt to regain the Ashes and then defend the 50-over World Cup won in 2017 – is undoubtedly the toughest of the lot.
The recent Covid-enforced rejigging of the Ashes schedule means the series is condensed into a three-week block, with the three T20s now to be played first, starting on Thursday. They will be followed by the one-off Test and three ODIs. From there, players will fly to New Zealand to begin a 10-day quarantine, before facing off yet again in both side’s first encounter of the World Cup on 5 March.
That Knight’s opposite number, Meg Lanning, took a break after the conclusion of the Women’s Big Bash in November to prepare for the intensity of the coming months is telling.
“You always feel a sense of responsibility as captain,” says Knight , acknowledging the acute pressure she faces over the coming weeks. “You want to lead from the front and be successful and help the team win games of cricket. But I’ve had quite a lot of experience of doing that and hopefully it’s pressure I’ve managed pretty well in the past.
“I won’t be changing too much in how I approach things and how I do things just because it’s an Ashes and a World Cup. I want to be as consistent as I possibly can in who I am as a person, how I prepare, how I chat to the girls. I’ll try and keep it as normal as possible.”
Normality is a relative concept at the moment. England’s preparations for the tour have been badly affected by the spread of Omicron, first back in the UK and now in Australia. Players have been isolating at home since Christmas in order to ensure they could fly to Australia Covid-free and face severe restrictions on their activities for the duration of the series.
“For those two weeks before we left England, we could only train as individuals and with our households,” Knight says. “We’ve had mums feeding bowling machines, boyfriends slinging, girlfriends slinging, dads batting and any family members or households supporting our training. As you can imagine it’s been pretty comical, but also not ideal preparation for a series of this magnitude.”
Partly in response to Covid outbreaks in both camps during the men’s Ashes series, Cricket Australia has imposed strict restrictions on the women’s teams. “The restrictions changed overnight whilst we were on the flight,” Knight says. “We’re not allowed to go for dinner anywhere, even outdoors. We’re only allowed to socialise outdoors and try and distance as much as we can.”
Even with these precautions, Covid has hit the England camp, with a member of support staff recording a positive test on Friday. The unspoken fear is that an outbreak could wreck not just the Ashes but either team’s forthcoming World Cup campaign. Due to quarantine rules, if a player is not Covid-free on 9 February – when the squads are due to fly to New Zealand – they will miss the tournament.
For England, the rescheduling is particularly challenging given that much of their pre-series training camp in Oman was focused on red-ball cricket, in anticipation of the Test that was originally due to be the series curtain-raiser. Some of the scheduled warm-ups against the England A side that have accompanied the main side to Australia have also had to be curtailed; the two squads are being kept as separate as possible in an attempt to limit the spread of any potential infection.
“Mentally it’s been tough but we’re doing everything we can to try and get ourselves prepped and be ready for the first game,” Knight says. “Mainly, the strategy we’ve found is to make jokes and try and laugh about it and try and keep everyone as relaxed as possible and try and find the funny side of it. We’ve got to keep tight as a group, we’ve got to keep spirits high.”
Knight has an enviable record on Australian wickets, especially Canberra – the setting for the Test and the first ODI – where she hit her maiden T20 hundred, in February 2020. Even so, beating the world’s No 1 side away from home, with limited match preparation and Covid breathing down their necks, may prove one demand too many for England.
