LONDON: England great Heather Knight bowed out of international cricket calling for more domestic red-ball games following her side’s 270-run thrashing by India in the inaugural women’s Test at Lord’s.
The hosts were outplayed in all departments in a match that started just five days after England’s defeat by Australia in the T20 World Cup final at the ‘Home of Cricket’.
India had several more days of preparation, with Australia knocking them out in the group stage of the World Cup, but, unlike England, they play domestic red-ball cricket as well.
And with a Test win worth four points in next year’s multi-format series at home to Australia, Knight believes this is an issue officials must address following England’s 16-0 humiliation ‘Down Under’ in the last women’s Ashes.
“I’d love to see some domestic red-ball cricket,” said Knight, the first woman to score a hundred in all three international formats.
“It doesn’t necessarily have to be a full part of the calendar, but I do think it would help us develop as better white-ball cricketers as well.”
The 35-year-old former England captain, who led her country to a 2017 50-over World Cup final victory over India at Lord’s added: “When I was a kid, it was hammered into me to value your wicket.
“A lot of our younger cricketers coming through are a lot better at T20 than they are 50-over, and they have to learn that side of it... being able to build an innings or shape a spell.”
England women’s coach Charlotte Edwards, Knight’s predecessor as skipper, said she hoped to improve the team’s Test cricket with the kind of training that had led to an upturn in their T20 form.
“A lot has been going on in my head over the last few days, and the one thing that I keep coming back to is, what we did so well last winter was we had this preparation phase of T20 cricket and we saw the benefits of that this summer,” Edwards told Sky Sports.
“I’m now excited to see what we do in terms of our four-day approach to this winter’s training.”
India needed just 95 minutes’ play on Monday’s fourth day to wrap up victory.
The match was a personal triumph for India’s Kranti Gaud and Yastika Bhatia, the first women to take five wickets and score a century, respectively, in a women’s Test at Lord’s.
“I think we were disciplined in our approach towards our batting and disciplined in our bowling as well, sticking to the basics of cricket,” said India women’s coach Amol Muzumdar.
The Test took place 142 years, and 150 matches, after Lord’s staged its first men’s Test and decades on from the first women’s game of any kind at the London ground — a 1976 One-day International between England and Australia.
Published in Dawn, July 15th, 2026
