England begin their ICC Women’s World Cup campaign in Derby and bid to win the tournament for the third time on home soil.
England won the inaugural event in 1973 when it was host and again in 1993. And Heather Knight’s side go into the tournament in good form having convincingly won all of their warm-up games.
Knight – who is fit to lead the team after recovering from a metatarsal stress fracture on her left foot – is pleased her side is in good form ahead of the tournament opener in Derby.
She said: “As a team we have really tried to embrace that it is a home World Cup and we know that brings added pressure but we are in a good place to deal with that.
“There is bound to be pressure. It’s going to be one of the most visible World Cups. Pressure comes with that, but as a team we try and embrace that. There is bound to be nerve. We are all human at the end of the day.
“How we deal with those, and use the pressure to our advantage. That’s what you train for. You want to play in front of people watching you, you want that pressure, and you want to perform under pressure. So, as a side we are trying to go and relish it.
“We have a lot of strength and depth in this squad, we had a convincing win against New Zealand in the last warm-up game and we had three of our most capped players on the bench, so that is a nice thing to have.
“India is a very good side and has some old stalwarts in its squad and some wise heads like Mithali Raj and Jhulan Goswami, who have been around for a long time and it also has some exciting young players coming through.
“They have a lot of spin bowling in their line-up, they only have three seamers in their squad, so we are aware of that.
England: Heather Knight (captain), Tamsin Beaumont, Katherine Brunt, Georgia Elwiss, Jenny Gunn, Alex Hartley, Danielle Hazell, Beth Langston, Laura Marsh, Natalie Sciver, Anya Shrubsole, Sarah Taylor, Fran Wilson, Lauren Winfield and Danielle Wyatt.
India: Mithali Raj (captain), Ekta Bisht, Rajeshwari Gayakwad, Jhulan Goswami, Mansi Joshi, Harmanpreet Kaur, Veda Krishnamurthy, Smriti Mandhana, Mona Meshram, Nuzhat Parween, Shikha Pandey, Punam Raut, Deepti Sharma, Sushma Verma and Poonam.
Tickets are available for all eight games in Derby, with only a limited number still available for the opener between England and India on Saturday.
For more information about ICC Women’s World Cup, please call 01332 388 101 or email [email protected].
