Heather Knight: England Women have point to prove against Australia in World Cup

Captain Heather Knight believes England Women have a point to prove to Australia when they open the defence of their World Cup title against their Ashes conquerors next week.

Knight’s side were humbled in the multi-format series Down Under, failing to win a game as they lost the only completed Twenty20 and three one-day internationals while drawing a thrilling Test in Canberra.

Focus now turns to the 50-over game and while England arrive in New Zealand as world champions, Australia look favourites to lift the trophy, having lost just one ODI since 2018, when they surrendered a 26-match unbeaten run to India in September.

But Knight, while admitting Meg Lanning’s side would be most people’s pick to win a seventh title, insists her team’s victory in 2017 can help them in their defence.

“We’ve got Australia first and it’s clear that we’ve got a bit of a point to prove as a side,” she said.

“Australia are going to go in as favourites with the Ashes series we’ve just had against them but I think it should give us a lot of experience of what it takes to be successful in these events.

“Sometimes it’s just about getting over the line and I think that’s what we did so well in 2017. We just were able to win those games that were really tight, we were able to keep our composure in the big moments and deal with everything else that comes with a World Cup.

“Five years is quite a long time and Australia have been the outstanding team within that period so rightfully I think they deserve that favourites tag but I certainly believe as a side on our day we can beat them.”

I think it's really important that we're able to park that and also realise that we haven't become a bad side overnight and we're still a very good ODI team- Heather