And while Knight was at the helm as captain of England the last time the side won a major women’s ICC tournament on home soil – the 2017 50-over World Cup – the former skipper believes the interest levels are even greater now and the chance to hold aloft another trophy would prove a massive boost for the game.
“To be honest, I didn’t really see the sort of overnight flip in women’s cricket becoming mainstream and I think there’s a lot of reasons for that,” Knight said.
“Maybe the infrastructure wasn’t quite there. The plan to get women’s cricket and grow it and build it probably wasn’t there.
“There was a great moment and everyone had a buzz around women’s cricket and then it seemed to disappear a little bit and obviously without the professional domestic structure below as well, you didn’t have the scaffolding to make the most of that success and that opportunity.
“But it does feel like this, where the game is at now, is so different, isn’t it? The professional set-up, the opportunity for girls to play cricket, the pathway is definitely there and the visibility, not just in World Cups, but in all the games that we play as England players and as domestic players. So I do think that this tournament is going to be set up to be huge from the start.”
