England Captain Heather Knight believes there is “real momentum” behind the women’s sport 100 days after its debut in what he expects to be a “blockbuster” Ashes sherry.
The highly anticipated Ashes post features only the second five-day Women’s Quiz scheduled to begin at 9 PM. Trent Bridge on June 22
Knight’s team and Ben Stokes’ men’s side will attempt to reclaim the Ashes on their home ground, with two series played for the first time in June and July without any conflict.
“(I) am so excited,” Knight, 32, told the PA news agency ahead of International Women’s Day.
“I think the AMB’s operation is very important in terms of really planning the fixtures in prime time.”
Stokes’ team will begin their first Test against. Australia On June 16, the second in Edgbaston and Lord’s will not start until June 28, when a women’s match will be played between these dates.
“It’s cool to start (the women’s Ashes) with a Test match at Trent Bridge,” Knight said.
“I think everyone is very excited for the boys Ashes, the way Ben and his team play, the excitement around. This is definitely going to be a blockbuster series.
“I hope we can also play some really fun cricket and both will be very successful.
“I think what we started to do as a team was we started building things, a real kind of identity for how we want to play things and how we want to move things forward, to keep pushing the boundaries of the game.
“It’s a real focus for us – entertaining and playing exciting cricket – so I think it’s definitely going to be a blockbuster series.”
This year we will witness some of the biggest tournaments in women’s sport take place.
Aside from the Ashes and the T20 World Cup, which Australia won in South Africa last month, the first Women’s Premier League, a big step forward for women’s football, is currently played in India.
There’s also the golf Solheim Cup, held in Spain in September, and the soccer World Cup, where European champion England try to triumph on the global stage this summer in Australia and New Zealand.
Knight, who plays for the Royal Challengers Bangalore Women in WPL, said: “I think there is real momentum behind women’s sport right now.
“I also think that the lionesses who won the Euro last summer are bringing women’s sport back into the limelight.
“I feel like the investment over the last few years is really starting to capture the imagination of the public and it’s pretty awesome that they want to watch really high quality sports. It’s a good time to get involved.”
Over the last few years, cricket in England has sought to attract a wider audience to the game and change its perception in British society, and an important tool for this is The Hundred tournament.
For English bowler Stuart Broad, the growth of women’s cricket is part of trying to improve the game as a whole.
“It’s nice to have both Ash side by side,” Broad said.
“We’ll watch Women’s Ashes when we have free days and vice versa. I think it works well to bring us all together.
“I remember watching the 2005 Ashes celebrations and the women’s team on the open-top bus was a part of that, and I think when you bring the men’s and women’s game together, as we saw in The Hundred, you help the whole grow. the audience of the game and this is a really important step for cricket to continue to take.
Both England Test teams will look better this summer after their forgettable Ashes Australia tours in 2021-22.
No team has ever won a single competitive game Down Under, where the men’s five-game Test series fell 4-0 and the women’s multi-format series lost 12-4.
Broad, who is part of a new looking England setup revamped under Captain Stokes and coach Brendon McCullum, said: “It would be really great for both teams to win the Ashes in the same summer.
“Obviously the way we’re playing under Brendon right now will be fun for the fans and I know the women’s team is approaching their game in a similar way so hopefully we’ll see lots of fun cricket at the men’s and women’s Ashes.”