By Huzaifa Yousafzai from Utilita Bowl
It was Heather Knight’s afternoon when her side chased down 151 against Southern Brave as the London Spirit opened their account for the season.
The England captain’s “spectacular” innings highlighted the middle order strength that London Spirit possess as they flexed their batting prowess with a clinical run chase.
“We have really good depth in our batting line up and still had a few batters to come in who would really back themselves to be able to chase that too,” said Spirit batter Georgia Redmayne in the post-match press conference.
Having scored a crucial 45 from 31 balls, the Australian opener was glowing in her praise for Knight, with whom she shared a 49-run partnership for the third wicket.
“The way Heather finished off there it was spectacular, watching that Win-Viz predicter go up and down the whole time. She was amazing, she played in front and behind the wicket really well. She made it easy for the rest of them (the lower order) by getting most of it done herself in the end, it was great to watch.”
Despite, Knight doing the bulk of the run scoring, Redmayne said that a similar run chase a few days prior gave her side confidence that their entire batting lineup could step up when needed.
“We had a practise game against the same opposition two days ago where we were chasing 150 and we got that. So we felt pretty comfortable that if we played well and stuck to our shots, we could chase it down.”
“We kind of stayed relatively similar to what they were for most of the back end, and we back our whole batting order to be able to chase big totals like that.”
Knight had been in excellent form in the past six weeks with her previous ten games across all competitions yielding 306 runs at an average of 61, including finishing not out in her last three innings.
Her England team-mate and Southern Brave opener, Dani Wyatt admitted that when Knight is in form, she can be very hard to stop.
“Heather just showed her experience there, we know what she can do for England over the years so credit to her and she’s been in great form throughout domestic and international cricket. It happens, it’s a part of the game and it’s going to happen.”
Wyatt also revealed that her side was well aware of Spirit’s batting depth and an extra 10 runs in the first innings would have been ideal for the Southern Brave.
“London spirit have got a very powerful batting line up so in my head I said 160 would be lovely with the extra fire power they have in their line-up.”
