‘Frustrated’ Heather Knight stuns the cricket world with her unacceptable behavior towards the courts
England captain Heather Knight is facing flak for her behavior towards the umpires after the second T20I against Australia in Canberra.
England’s winless run in the Women’s Ashes continued as Australia claimed the second T20i and the second T20I in dramatic fashion to complete the outright series win. The win in the second T20I saw Australia extend their lead to 12-0 in the multi-format series.
Set a challenging total of 186 runs in a must-win clash, England needed 18 runs from the last five balls. Heather Knight led the charge with the bat for her side. She was unbeaten on 43 off just 19 balls when rain played Sprialsport. The dead players were removed from the field and no further play was possible due to heavy rain.
England’s innings was interrupted by rain earlier in the innings. They were 69/1 in 8.4 overs, two runs ahead of DLS when the rain arrived. However, the show continued until the rain stopped.
Heather Knight wasn’t happy at all when the referee waved the game away and she wasn’t shy about venting her frustration. She chose not to shake hands with the match officials after the game was called off. The incident happened when she was also informed on the court by the captain of Australia, Tahlia McGrath, that the match was called with five balls remaining.
As soon as the umpire informed the captains, Heather Knight was seen shaking hands with her Australian counterpart before deciding to leave. One of the duplicates reached out to the Star of England, but she ignored it and walked away.
Watch:
It’s all over! 😮
Australia won by six runs, via DLS.#Ash pic.twitter.com/htbibih4rw
– 7cricket (@7cricket) January 23, 2025
Heather Knight admits that the Umars were right:
Once Heather Knight cooled down and got her emotions under control, she admitted that her opponents were right to give up the game. She admitted she was frustrated at coming off the pitch after being in good touch before reiterating that the decision to stop the play was the right one.
“It was the right decision of the Umpire,” she said. “I was really in the zone to try and win us that game and obviously frustrated that we started, but it wasn’t down to the refs at all. It was quite wet, even when we were running it felt quite slippery and it was quite difficult to attack those two.
“It was a great game of cricket. I felt like I could get us over the line. I felt really set up and I had really good boundary options on very good cricket. It was a great crowd and they deserved the finish. And you could to hear the frustration from the fans that we started, and the game failed to reach its conclusion,” she added.
With the Ashes already lost, England now have only pride to play for. They will be looking to win the third and final T20I to end the series on top. The T20I series will be followed by a one-off Test between the two sides.
