ICC Womens T20 World Cup 2024 | England captain Heather Knight preview

Leading the England team into a new World Cup is an honor.

As a player, you can always look forward to participating in World Cups and making lifelong experiences. Nothing beats watching the greatest teams in the world battle it out for that trophy, and you always feel privileged to be a part of it.

We have a great balance of youth and experience, with some players who have participated in World Cups before and others who are doing so for the first time, which is incredibly exciting. I tell them to seize every opportunity and rise to the occasion.

The team we have chosen for the competition in the United Arab Emirates excites me much. We cover a lot of ground, and during the past year, every member of the squad has come up to deliver outstanding performances that have helped the team win cricket matches. Everyone is eager for the upcoming month and we want to create wonderful memories both on and off the field.

I'm writing this from our training camp in Abu Dhabi, which will hopefully help us before the tournament begins. We've had a terrific setup here that has helped us acclimate to the heat and other environmental factors. As our debut game against Bangladesh on October 5th approaches, it's all beginning to seem very real.

Over the past 18 months or so, we have been preparing for this World Cup and have gained a great deal of confidence from our play. We want to keep playing the style of cricket we have been playing and give it our all when it matters most. Each member of the team will be playing a significant part.

The sample size for women's T20 matches in the UAE is tiny because there hasn't been any women's cricket played there to yet. We are aware that the stadiums are well-maintained. We've been getting players ready for Bangladeshi conditions for a while now, so I don't think our preparations will change all that much even with the move to the UAE.

We have a very clear idea of how we want to play and go about things. We feel wonderful and have done the greatest preparation we can. Since it's the World Cup and there will be more pressure to succeed from outside sources, it's critical that we don't alter our style of play. It's about taking things one game at a time and trying our best to do the best we can.

Since T20 is one of the most volatile and unpredictable formats, we must adopt the proper mindset, avoid making too many changes because it's the World Cup, and monitor our progress.

We are excited to get going and create some memories because we know there are excellent sides that will each present unique challenges.