A SUMMER KNIGHT’S DREAM STARTS HERE

Bouncing across a bustling Brighton road on a pair of crutches and a moon boot, decked out in her Western Storm playing kit, Heather Knight cuts a curious figure to the cars she is taking on.Yet the bold manoeuvre is never in doubt. Much like her tenure in charge of the England team, she passes both unflustered and assured.

Speaking with The Cricket Paper, near on a year since her appointment to the top job, Knight is yet to lose a series. But she knows the traffic gets heavier this summer with the biggest six months in the history of women’s cricket coming up for her charges. A period where, if she can secure a couple of trophies, her legacy could well be secured by age 26.

Knight’s role is part national captain, part ambassador for the promotion of the women’s game. No different to the men’s equivalent, but the latter job inescapably more pronounced.

Our discussion runs alongside an announcement of tickets being released for the second iteration of the domestic T20 Kia Super League, its finals day inked for Hove in August. Knight does a lot of these appearances.

Ten quid for families is the headline, in a competition that has quickly won a place as one of two destinations for the world’s elite international players, coupled with the Australian version in the winter – the Women’s Big Bash League. Knight plays, and captains, in both.

But where in 2016 a successful inaugural KSL usurped all else on the calendar for administrators, a year on there’s a home World Cup and an away Ashes series either side of the fledgling domestic T20. And grouped together, it presents another transformative opportunity for the women’s game.

ECB’s Director of Women’s Cricket, Clare Connor, explained to the Nightwatchman/Wisden podcast this week that England winning the Ashes in 2005, followed by dual World Cup triumphs of 2009, created the precondition for professional contracts. If Knight’s young team can do something similar in 2017, the commercial opportunities off the field – and participation increases on it – could be without precedent.

“It’s massive,” Knight says. “It is going to be the most publicised and visible Women’s World Cup ever.” It may be two months off, but this is where the England skipper’s mind is firmly trained. “If we can be successful there will be growth, and success brings more exposure. We are fully aware of that. We are in a results business, and fully aware that if we do well we will be rewarded.”

The life-cycle of Knight’s generation begins as Charlotte Edwards international career concluded: England’s capitulation in the World T20 semi-final. A year before, there was similar despair after a flogging in the Ashes at home. The difference between that team and now, she believes, is a belief that they can better handle those situations of elevated importance.

“We learned a hell of a lot,” she says, adding that she believes Australia will go in to theWorld Cup as favourites despite their home advantage. “But we’ve got to try and embrace that expectation. We’re in a much better place to deal with all we’ve done over the last year. We deal with pressure a lot better.

“It helped us that we had a massive fresh start, a change of coach and the team is a hell of a lot different to how it looked at that World T20.

“We’re trying to build something for the long-term; we want to get to the world number one and to stay there for a long time. But there is no doubt we are going to be judged on this year. It’s going to be a big test.”

The stress fracture in Knight’s foot (“I had no idea I have been playing with a broken fifth metatarsal!”) won’t hamper her summer – she expects to be back in the nets in a fortnight.

What is less clear is whether Sarah Taylor will be joining her in an English shirt. The dynamic ‘keeper/bat, with 190 caps, has missed twelve months of cricket treating an anxiety condition, before touring the UAE with the side in April in an encouraging return.

“She did brilliantly in Abu Dhabi,” says Knight. “But with Sarah at the moment we are taking it one step at a time, so it would be unfair to give a definitive answer.”

It is the careful management of personalities Knight identifies as the most important learning of her first year. She uses the example of England’s new ball combination: explosive Katherine Brunt and subtle operator Anya Shrubsole.

“They are yin and yang,” Knight explains. “With Katherine, if you tell her what to do she will rebel and go the other way whereas Anya is very logical, needs to know the plan, needs to know what is going on.”

Shrubsole will rejoin Knight at the Western Storm for KSL season two. The most significant development since last summer is Sky signing on to televise the first six fixtures, and all of the finals day at Hove. Organisationally, it in considerably better shape than this time last year.

“There was some amazing cricket played (in KSL 2016) that was completely missed because it wasn’t broadcast,” Knight recalls.

“It’s an area the WBBL had the jump on the KSL, free-to-air TV backing that competition from the outset, winning up to 700,000 viewers at a time.

“It’s hard to compare the two,” Knight says. “The WBBL had that advantage of piggy backing on the men and the KSL is a completely new league, new teams, and trying to appeal to a new fan base. In that respect, we were always going to be playing catch up. But I think the ECB have done a brilliant job launching it and this year it has the added exposure of TV.”

As far as how the people closest to Knight are concerned, it won’t matter how often she ends up on the television, or how many trophies she lifts; the friends who “know bugger all about cricket” or the family her give her plenty of stick.

“It keeps me normal and grounded,” she says. Qualities as integral as any to the success she craves this year.

“It’s massive. It’s going to be the most publicised and visible Women’s “World Cup ever. If we do well, we’ll be rewarded