England Women captain Heather Knight was pleased with her team’s performance after they defeated Pakistan Women in the 24th match of the ongoing ICC World Cup 2022 at the Hagley Oval, Christchurch on Thursday.
England was able to cruise to a nine-wicket win and won with 30.4 overs to spare as they totally dominated Pakistan to boost their NRR and strengthen their chance of qualifying for the semifinals.
Pakistan was skittled out for a paltry score of 105 runs after Heather Knight won the toss and decided to bowl first. Katherine Brunt and Sophie Eccelstone scalped three wickets apiece whereas Kate Cross and Heather Knight took one wicket each for England.
Pakistan batters were not able to get any kind of momentum in their batting innings as they kept losing wickets at regular intervals.
In fact, only three batters were able to get to the double-digit mark for Pakistan. On the other hand, Danielle Wyatt smashed 76 runs off just 68 balls to help her team over the line in the run-chase.
Heather Knight said in the post-match press conference, “Complete performance. Really pleased with how we have done today. Brunt had a tough tournament, but to see her come back to her best was nice. She put a bit of work in her action yesterday. It was pretty green, the new ball was hard to play. Diana bowled so well. If we had batted first maybe we would have looked to get 270-280, but the plan was to bowl them out and chase it down. Hopefully, we are starting to build some momentum. Big game for us against Bangladesh. Hopefully, our run rate is good enough to take us into the semifinal.”
Meanwhile, England didn’t get off to a good start in the tournament but they have bounced back well in the last few matches. The reigning champions now need to win their last match against Bangladesh in order to qualify for the semifinals.
England has an NRR of +0.778 and they are currently in fourth place in the points table. The Heather Knight-led team will next face Bangladesh at Basin Reserve, Wellington on Sunday.
