‘I back her 100%’: Dunkley refuses to blame Knight for England Ashes failure
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The England batter Sophia Dunkley says she backs captain Heather Knight “100%” despite Australia securing an unassailable lead in the Women’s Ashes with a fourth consecutive victory on Monday. Australia’s 57-run win in the first T20 puts them 8-0 up in the points format and means they will retain the Ashes even if England win the remaining two T20 matches and the one-off Test.
Knight has captained England since 2016 but has not won an Ashes series in that time, while the last piece of silverware won by England was the 2017 World Cup. The visitors have so far failed to win a match on this Ashes tour. But Dunkley denied that Knight was to blame for England’s poor run of form. “She’s done the job amazingly for a long time, and she’s a massive part of our changing room,” she said. “I back her 100% to help turn this team around.”.
Dunkley emphasised that it was still possible for England to draw the series 8-8, if they were to win the final two T20s and the Test at the MCG. “There’s still eight points out there to get, and we’re going to do everything we can to try and get those eight points,” she said.
“There’s still a lot for us to play for. All we can do is stick together now and fight as hard as we can for the last three games.”. England have suffered batting collapses in every match of the tour so far, but Dunkley said that it was important to continue with an aggressive approach, following her own 24-ball half-century in Monday’s T20. “We pride ourselves on trying to be brave, and we’ll try and do that again,” she said.
