England is looking forward to use World Cup plans during New Zealand T20I series. Heather Knight says hosts won’t be afraid to try out their plans, even if conditions suit. Heather Knight is confident that it will help them finalize the strongest 15-member squad for the World Cup with suitable bench-strength.
England is playing a 5-match bilateral series with New Zealand starting today.
Heather Knight said that while conditions were virtually impossible to replicate at home, her side would look to play combinations and scenarios as though they were in Bangladesh.
“All we can do as players is be as prepared as we can,” Knight said. “In terms of prepping the team, just little things like playing teams that we think we’re going to play in Bangladesh, that are definitely an option.
“Regardless of conditions here, we’re going to have that mantra to try and prepare us as if we’re playing in Bangladesh and try things out regardless of what the conditions are here.
“So we will see potential things that we’ll do in Bangladesh rather than necessarily, ‘right, it looks a bit green here, we probably would play a seamer, usually an extra seamer,’ we probably won’t do that in these conditions.
“Obviously the aim is to try and win, but we’ve got a bigger picture with the World Cup coming up in the back of the mind as well.
“It’s always a fine balance between prepping individuals but also trying to get your team balance and try a few things potentially that might not be conducive to the conditions here, but might actually fit the conditions in Bangladesh. That’s going to be the forefront of our decision-making as a leadership group.”
“There’s just a couple of spots that we want to get finalised and sorted,” she said. “In terms of what we want to see, it’s the way we want to play in Bangladesh, the skills that we’re going to need as batters and bowlers to be successful in Bangladesh.
“Picking fifteens and picking elevens in particular is really tough at the moment. The girls are putting in performances, which is making it a lot trickier for us, which is a really good place to be. It shows the competition that we’ve got and the players that are performing.
“We’re going to need that whole squad in Bangladesh. Someone can get ill on the morning of a game, so we’re going to need a squad where we’ve got enough back-up and enough players that can fill different places in different conditions. We’re close and hopefully we’ll be pretty set at the back end of the series.”
