Women’s World Cup: ‘We’ve been up to our eyebrows in crosswords’ – Knight

England skipper Heather Knight says her team are raring to go as they near the end of their Women’s World Cup quarantine.

Knight and her charges are preparing for the defence of their Women’s World Cup crown in New Zealand.

The England captain is grateful that the isolation period was cut to just five days, but insists that the tedium is beginning to get to them.

In a column for the ICC Media Zone, Knight wrote: “It’s pretty surreal to feel so near to a World Cup and yet so far away! Throwing rolled up socks into your bed to keep ticking over wasn’t how I imagined our build-up for this tournament back in 2017 but an awful lot has happened in the world since then.

“As I write this, we’re on day five of our quarantine and we’re not far away from being let out, thanks to the New Zealand Government’s change of isolation rules!

“We’re obviously looking forward to being allowed back out to train. Some of us cope better than others in quarantine but we’ve been trying to keep busy.

“We’ve been up to our eyebrows in crosswords, Sophie Ecclestone has been running HIIT classes on Zoom, Freya Davies organised a brilliant quiz (including ‘Guess the baby picture’, which was brilliant) and I’ve taken some inspiration from watching a documentary on the first all-female crew to take part in the Whitbread Round the World Race.

“It’s called Maiden and it features some amazing women – a documentary that I would very much recommend.”

Knight says that England are eager to put the disappointment of the Ashes loss behind them.

“As a group, we need to reset and refocus after an Ashes series that didn’t go our way.

“I was really pleased with how we started the series.

“We went toe to toe with Australia and heading into the ODI leg of the series