Claire Taylor backs England for Women’s World Cup semi-final spot

World Cup winner Claire Taylor believes Heather Knight’s England team should reach the semi-finals of this year’s competition.

England showed a marked improvement after failing to win a single match in the multi-format Women’s Ashes last month as they pushed Australia to the final over on Saturday in the tournament opener.

Knight’s side started their title defence with a 12-run defeat but Taylor, who won the tournament in 2009, believes the improvement is significant.

“We did bat better against Australia than we had earlier (in the Ashes) but I think we should make semi-finals and then it’s anyone’s competition,” Taylor told the PA news agency.

Australia went into the tournament as the favourites and have dominated the women’s scene over the last four years, since becoming the first country to professionalise their domestic women’s game with the first Women’s Big Bash in 2015-16.

England did not follow suit until 2019, when they introduced the first regional professional contracts following a heavy Ashes defeat, but Taylor believes the international side can catch up.

“Yes. I don’t know how long, it’s going to take a while for the benefits to be seen from this regional domestic structure, I think it’s going to take a couple of years – maybe slightly less time for the benefits of the Hundred to be seen,” she said.

“For our young domestic cricketers, to be playing in teams where they have three overseas internationals plus a couple of England players, that will accelerate their development significantly.

“So I think we’ll see the benefits from the Hundred quicker than the regional structures, but still those things will come through.”

For Taylor, who was not paid during her own 13-year international career as international