England Women’s team didn’t have the best of starts to the ongoing ICC Women World Cup 2022 as they lost their opening three matches against Australia, West Indies, and South Africa. Every match after that was a do-or-die affair for the Heather Knight-led team and they were able to come up with flying colors.
The defending champions bested India, New Zealand, Pakistan, and Bangladesh to make their way into the semifinal. Knight reckons that treating their last four matches as knockout games will hold them in good stead in the semifinal clash against South Africa.
England has handled the pressure well in these last four matches and it will certainly help them in the semifinal.
“We’re in a very good place,” Knight said. “We still probably haven’t played our best cricket yet, which is more exciting, I think, and something we feel like we’re building towards, hopefully at the perfect time.
“The really pleasing thing is we’ve reacted brilliantly to knockout games. We’ve been playing knockout cricket since the fourth game, so to be able to deal with that is great for going into the semi-final. Having that mentality to have the pressure on you and that if you lose you’re out, we’ve had that for a while now, so I think that will be a really useful thing for us.
“The same things apply, just keeping it really simple, going into that semi-final not changing too many things and just doing what’s gone very well for us recently.”
In fact, England had beaten South Africa in a thrilling semifinal contest back in the 2017 Women’s World Cup. Knight believes it is pivotal for her team to follow the right process in the big match.
“We’ve been used to dealing with the pressure of the last four games,” Knight said. “So having a process as individuals and as a team is quite important, and knowing what the stakes are, it’s just useful just to know that we’ve been successful and it’s brought the best out of us. I think that will build a lot of confidence going into Thursday.
“We’ll have to bring our best cricket and we’d love to obviously have the same result as 2017. It would be a little bit nicer if it wasn’t as close because that’s probably one of the most nerve-wracking finishes to a cricket game I think I’ve ever had, to make a home World Cup final.”
Meanwhile, England lost to South Africa by three wickets earlier in the league stage. The second semifinal between these two teams will be played at the Hagley Oval, Christchurch on Thursday.
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