'Raw' Knight bemoans England's failure to adapt

England's first innings total of 105 felt low, and Australia showed it to be the case as they chased it down with 29 balls to spare, having only lost two wickets, to win the ICC Women's World T20

England captain Heather Knight's decision to bat first was at the forefront of the conversation after they were comfortably beaten by Australia in the final of the ICC Women's World T20 on Saturday.

England's first innings total of 105 felt low, and Australia showed it to be the case as they chased it down with 29 balls to spare, having only lost two wickets. 

"It's quite raw at the moment," she admitted. "We wanted to put runs on the board. We knew that there was going to be a bit of a dew, and we thought it was going to skid-on a lot more than it did in the semi-final.

"We probably didn’t quite adapt to conditions as well as we could have in terms of the areas we hit and in terms of the wickets we lost.

"I thought Dani Wyatt started brilliantly, the way she played with that sort of freedom is what we wanted - it gave us a bit of momentum.

^{Dani Wyatt scored 43 off 37 balls}

"We just kept losing wickets at key times, lost a lot of momentum through the innings, and obviously weren’t able to post a total that was competitive."

Despite what was a bad defeat, Knight paid tribute to the efforts of a young squad in making it to another world tournament final.

"Really proud of the girls for making another world final," she said. "We came in with a lot of inexperience, and some of the girls that have come in have stepped up brilliantly.

"Sophie Ecclestone has been around for a year and what a spell from her tonight. She bowled brilliantly I thought. Kirstie Gordon has been a real find, and Sophia Dunkley as well. Really pleased with those girls - this will be a great experience for them and make them better players in the future."