UK Edition
Charlotte Edwards and Heather Knight on course for Kia Super League reunion
The past and present of English women’s cricket pit their wits against one another this Thursday as Charlotte Edwards’s Southern Vipers face Heather Knight’s Western Storm in the opening match of the Kia Super League.
Though Edwards technically abdicated the England captaincy in May last year by retiring from international cricket, coach Mark Robinson gave her little choice by telling her he wanted to move in a fresh direction and promptly handed Knight the blazer.
To add another layer of intrigue to the Twenty20 game at the Ageas Bowl, the fixture is a repeat of last year’s final when the Vipers recorded a comfortable seven-wicket victory to lift the trophy at Chelmsford.
Speaking at the Kia Super League launch, Knight said: “It was unfortunate that we lost that final, but the Vipers were the best team throughout the competition.
“It would be lovely to get a bit of revenge and like I said earlier it’s a five-match competition to get into that Finals day so it’s so important to start well and get a bit of momentum.”
Role model, teammate and now opponent, Knight faces Edwards in a tactical battle that could prove one of the game’s most absorbing sub-plots. England’s World Cup triumph on home soil vindicates Robinson’s move to herald a new dawn, but it would be misleading to assume any animus between the two captains.
Though Edwards told the Daily Telegraph in June she ‘hadn’t really been spoken to’ about the decision to let her go, she was cheering England on from the commentary box while working for Sky Sports during the World Cup.
The domestic Twenty20 competition has arrived at an opportune moment, only a few weeks after Knight’s England won their fourth World Cup in nail-biting fashion against India at Lords.
“Yeah it’s perfect isn’t it?,” said Knight. “It’s a great opportunity for people to come out and watch women’s cricket again and see some of the best players in the world. Hopefully the momentum of the World Cup will bring people to watch us and it’s great that the Kia Super League is on Sky, all the games I think are on Test Match Special, and that’s another step up from last year.”
The tournament will take another ‘step up’ next year, following Wednesday’s news that the competition will be expanded. Currently, six regional teams play each other once before the top three qualify for finals day. As of 2018, the six teams will play each other home and away, doubling the number of games and bestowing the event with additional gravitas.
A new feature this year however is the ‘double header’, when fans will be able to watch a Super League game before the men take the field for a Natwest T20 blast match. A Roses match between Yorkshire Diamonds and Lancashire Lightning at Headingley promises to be a particularly raucous occasion.
One of England’s World Cup heroes Sarah Taylor is in the Lancashire squad. After a year long absence from the game to recover from a stress-related condition, the wicket-keeper batsman is in fine fettle after a serene campaign that included a career-best 147 against Sri Lanka.
Taylor is one of eight new members in Lancashire’s squad, and though her roots lie on the south coast with Sussex she is fully embracing the historic cross-Pennine rivalry.
The England ‘keeper told Sky Sports: "The other thing was 'you hate Yorkshire'. I don't really know the history of the rivalry too well, but I kind of got caught up in it.
"Don't get me wrong, there is a bit of a Yorkshire v Sussex rivalry that has carried for a while. But now I'm like 'yeah, Yorkshire, I hate them'. I'm definitely feeling it."
This year’s final day is at Hove, with organisers hoping to fully capitalise on a surge of interest in the women's game after 1.1 million people watched the World Cup final.