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22/08/2024 06:00

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    Although England won the first ODI, Heather Knight still expects more from her batters
Although England won the first ODI, Heather Knight still expects more from her batters
England captain Heather Knight. Source: independent.co.uk

Although England won the first ODI, Heather Knight still expects more from her batters

This Sunday's match, the second in the three-match series against Pakistan, is at Taunton.

In their three-match ODI series against Pakistan, England's skipper Heather Knight demanded an improvement in her team's batting.

England easily defeated Pakistan by 37 runs in Derby, as the home team's score of 243 for nine was not exceeded.

With 29, Knight was one of eight English batters to reach double figures. Nat Sciver-Brunt(31), Tammy Beaumont(33), and Amy Jones(37) all contributed well as well.

However, nobody exceeded 50, except Alice Capsey, a teenager who achieved a personal best ODI score of 44 by breaking 40.

“We got a lot of starts and we probably want one of our top five or six batters to go and get that (big score),” Knight said Sky Sports. “I thought Tammy set the tempo nicely, she got it just right the way she went about things. It was a nice little innings from Capsey too, but it was a bit scrappy and there are a lot of things we can tighten up. We want the batters going on. A lot of us got starts, but you want one batter to dominate and take that score up to around the 300 mark. But it was quite tricky to force the game on that wicket. It was a little bit slow.”

The 50-over series will conclude with a game in Chelmsford on Wednesday, with the second game taking place in Taunton on Sunday.

With her three-wicket haul, Sophie Ecclestone now has 98 ODI wickets.

If the 25-year-old spinner takes two more wickets at Taunton, she will surpass Australia's Cathryn Fitzpatrick as the fastest woman to 100 ODI wickets.

Having switched from T20 cricket following a 3-0 series win over Pakistan, Knight said: “I’ve spoken about how we’ve not played a huge amount of one-day cricket and finding that tempo can be a little bit hard. You’ve just got to show your skills for longer and be a little more patient. You’ve got to read the ebbs and flows of the game a bit more and adapt to that.”

149 for four in the 35th over appeared to be a good starting point for Pakistan to launch a winning push.

However, in the span of seven overs, five wickets fell for 29 runs, ending Pakistan's hopes of winning an ODI against England for the first time at the thirteenth time.

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