Barclay comments "made me sad", says Heather Knight

England will be playing women's Test cricket with the Dukes ball for the first time

Heather Knight has issued her response to comments made by ICC chair Greg Barclay, who suggested that he did not consider women's Test cricket to be "part of the landscape moving forward to any real extent".

So rarely do women's Tests take place that the format constantly feels under threat, even after Knight played one of the great Test innings in England's draw with Australia six months ago. This next instalment – against South Africa at Taunton – will be the home side's third in the last 12 months but the tourists' first for eight years.

"It made me sad really," said Knight of Barclay's comments. "As a player, I want to play it. Test cricket is seen by a lot of people as the pinnacle, it's marketed as the pinnacle quite often. It's seen as the best and most challenging form of the game, which I definitely agree with.

"It sends not a great message that the comments from Greg suggested that women shouldn't be playing it. I think that's a dangerous message that women shouldn't be playing in the future at what's seen as the pinnacle of the game.

"I'm sure it wasn't that well thought through potentially, and I think we shouldn't limit what women's cricket can be and what we can do. With the right conditions and the right players – as we saw in Canberra – women's Test cricket can be really exciting and a great spectacle."

She credits the move to add Tests to multiformat series with providing important context to games that previously had one-off status. "I think it works really well," said Knight, "and it keeps women's Test cricket alive."

Next week's encounter will carry plenty of differences, though – not least in the shape of an England team without either Katherine Brunt or Anya Shrubsole for the first time in a Test match since 2008, a marker of their extraordinary longevity as a pair of opening bowlers.

^{Lauren Bell could make her international debut at Taunton (James Allan/Getty Images)}

"They're certainly going to leave some holes in the team," added Knight, whose side will hand out at least three Test debuts and as many as five. Emily Arlott, Lauren Bell and Freya Davies are the uncapped seam options at England's disposal. "There are some really top young seamers coming through, and it's a chance for them to put a mark on Test cricket and show that they deserve to take on the mantle from Anya and Katherine."

Part of Knight's role as captain and England's most-capped active Test cricketer – as she prepares for her tenth appearance – will come in educating those youngsters around the nuances of the longest format.

English domestic cricket doesn't yet possess a multiday strand – although Lisa Keightley hinted on Monday that such a thing might not be far off, so the extent of prior red-ball experience for many newcomers might not extend beyond the occasional warmup match with England A.

"It's certainly given me a lot of energy, trying to help those guys translate what they've done in domestic cricket to try to do it in an England shirt," said Knight. "First of all, just making them feel comfortable and letting them know they're here because they deserve to be here – because of their performances in the domestic setup and because we think they have really good potential."

The nature of women's Test cricket, however, is such that learning on the job has almost become a prerequisite. Knight admitted that even she is only starting to feel as if she's cracked the code of batting in four-day cricket.

"When I first played Test cricket, suddenly I felt that I had to be really defensive and it's about batting time," she reflected. "Whereas now I've found a balance a bit more of how I'm going to score runs alongside managing if the ball's moving a bit more and we have to soak up pressure.

"I feel like I've started to get a real method for how I want to do things – the rhythm and pace of my innings. Just mentally, preparing how you're going to go about it and manage different situations at the start of an innings, how I'm going to score runs in the middle and that balance between defence and attack.

"I love the challenge of batting in Test matches. I just love batting and love the chance to keep batting."

^{South Africa's seam attack will like the sound of the Dukes ball... (Sanka Vidanagama/AFP via Getty Images)}

This time around, she will have to negotiate the new challenge of a Dukes ball, being used by England for the first time in a women's Test. Brunt railed earlier this year against the fact that she had never bowled with a Dukes, which traditionally moves more in the air than the Kookaburra, which England Women have historically used.

"They actually feel a bit smaller, weirdly," said Knight, having started to become accustomed to the slight shift in the last week – a rare opportunity for her side to hone their red-ball skills. Ahead of the Ashes Test in January, a late schedule change meant they had just two days to switch formats from white ball to red.

"The seam is more pronounced; they definitely bounce a little more and stay harder for longer. With the new ball, it tends not to swing massively straight away. We've found it to be five or six overs before the lacquer comes off that they really start to swing around and you can shine them up. I think it's a really good move for women's Test cricket: you always feel like you're in the game as a bowler, with the ball being a little bit harder. But also, the batters get really good value for shots.

"That was what made the Canberra Test – obviously we used the Kookaburra – quite exciting: the pitch carried, there was a bit in it for the bowlers, but as a batter you felt like you could score quite quickly and you got good value for your runs. I think that's an important component for the women's game to make Test cricket exciting and really good to watch."

Against South Africa's much-vaunted seam attack, that theory will certainly be tested.

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