Heather Knight calls for more domestic red-ball cricket after England loss to India

LONDON: Former England captain Heather Knight has urged the introduction of more domestic red-ball cricket after England were heavily beaten by India in the inaugural women’s Test at Lord’s.

England lost by 270 runs in a one-sided contest, with the hosts second best across all departments. The match began only five days after England’s defeat by Australia in the T20 World Cup final at Lord’s, while India had more time to prepare after being eliminated in the group stage. India also play domestic red-ball cricket, unlike England.

With a Test win carrying four points in next year’s multi-format series at home against Australia, Knight said the matter needed attention after England’s 16-0 Ashes defeat in Australia. Speaking after the match, she said she wanted to see some domestic longer-format cricket introduced to help player development.

Knight said the benefits would not be limited to Test cricket. She added that exposure to red-ball matches could also improve players in white-ball formats by helping them learn how to build an innings and construct a spell, rather than relying only on T20 skills.

In her remarks, Knight also reflected on how batting was taught earlier in her career and said younger players now often arrive with stronger T20 foundations than 50-over habits. She is the first woman to score a century in all three international formats and captained England to victory over India in the 2017 women’s 50-over World Cup final at Lord’s.

England women’s head coach Charlotte Edwards said the team’s recent T20 improvement followed a focused preparation period last winter and suggested a similar approach could now be taken for the longer format. Speaking to Sky Sports, Edwards said she had been thinking about how England should approach four-day cricket in winter training.

India wrapped up the win within 95 minutes on the fourth day on Monday. The match also brought individual milestones for India, with Kranti Gaud becoming the first woman to take five wickets in a women’s Test at Lord’s and Yastika Bhatia becoming the first to score a century in a women’s Test at the ground.

India women’s coach Amol Muzumdar said his side stayed disciplined with both bat and ball and stuck to the basics of the game. Knight, meanwhile, said the week had been significant because it marked the first women’s Test at Lord’s and expressed hope that the occasion would help move the conversation beyond milestones and towards the cricket itself.

The fixture was staged 142 years after Lord’s hosted its first men’s Test and after 150 men’s Tests at the venue. It also came decades after the first women’s match of any kind at the ground, a one-day international between England and Australia in 1976.