Knight: Commonwealth Games can be cricket's showcase for Olympics

Heather Knight admits England's Twenty20 team can help push cricket towards being an Olympic sport again.

England start their three-match T20 programme with South Africa in Chelmsford on Thursday holding an unassailable 8-2 lead in the multi-format series, but the skipper is already thinking about the impact playing at the Commonwealth Games could have for the sport as a whole.

Knight's side swept the ODI matches 3-0 and South Africa can only level the series by producing their own T20 whitewash, with the action beginning live on Sky Sports Cricket & Main Event on Thursday from 6.30pm.

But women's cricket will be involved at the Commonwealth Games for the first time at Birmingham, with the tournament due to get under way on July 29, and Knight believes it is a "game-changer".

Knight said: "It is a chance for us as a sport to reach some people we haven't reached before. A huge stage to show what we can do.

"The platform to reach so many people is there, so our job is to be successful and show the skills that we have.

"It's massive how much women's cricket has changed and this could be another game-changer in terms of reaching new people and a different level."

A men's cricket competition was held at the 1998 Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, with South Africa taking gold by beating Australia in the final.

The only Olympic cricket competition was at Paris 1900 when only two countries took part and Great Britain overcame hosts France to win gold.

Asked if cricket could become part of the Olympics, Knight said: "Potentially. Long after I've retired it might well happen.

"I think T20 would be the format, like it is in the Commonwealths, and the conversation would have to be had about schedules.

"There's a lot in the