As many captains as Popes - Knight ready to lead again

England women do not change captain very often.

This century, there have been as many permanent England captains - three - as there have been Popes.

When it comes to Heather Knight, it is hard to think of a more consistent leadership presence in British sport. Named skipper in 2016, she has outlasted four prime ministers.

"Being England captain becomes a big part of your identity," Knight tells BBC Sport. "It's an all-encompassing job. You're always thinking about it, even if you're on holiday. Planning, having conversations about what is coming up.

"It’s nice to have friends outside of cricket, who will ask about the game but also don't care if I’m doing well or not."

Knight’s captaincy predecessors, Clare Connor and Charlotte Edwards, experienced periods of change. Both would have known a time when women played international cricket in skirts.

But the progress in Knight's era has hit warp speed. When Knight began her international career in 2010, England were still four years away from full-time contracts. Now, the Women’s Premier League in India has made Nat Sciver-Brunt one of the highest paid female athletes in the country.

Knight's first home international, against Ireland in 2010, was played at Kibworth Cricket Club in Leicestershire. On Saturday she will lead England out for the first Twenty20 international against Pakistan at Edgbaston in front of an expected 15,000 spectators.

With professionalism, crowds and cash come scrutiny, expectation and pressure.

"The best advice I got was to be the captain the team needs me to be," says Knight, sitting in the Birmingham sunshine.

"Right now the team needs someone pretty relaxed because we're pretty clear how we want to play. When I first took over, I was a young captain of a young team and we needed a lot of direction."

This summer already looks set to be another record-breaking one in terms of attendances for England women matches.

The 75,000 pre-sold tickets is a higher figure at this point than in last year’s Ashes summer, an impressive achievement considering this year's tourists Pakistan and New Zealand do not have the pedigree of the Australians, and there is no Test match.

For Knight, taking the game to the "next level" is the "new normal". For the younger members of her squad, such as Alice Capsey, Charlie Dean and Freya Kemp, there was never an old normal. To them, it has always been like this.

"Trying to keep everyone level is quite important," says Knight, "Now you can be given quite a lot of stuff at a young age and you don't have the chance to find out who you are outside of being a cricketer.

"You're thrown into cricket and do so much of it. Some of the girls are really good at making time away, because it’s not easy. I'm quite grateful that I was able to have a more rounded entry into the game."

That rounded time before life as a cricketer involved working in a care home as a teenager. In order to earn some extra cash whilst studying for her A-Levels, Knight would do four-hour shifts in the kitchen of Copper Beeches in Plymouth and be paid £20.

She turned down a place at Cambridge University to study biomedical science with physiology at Cardiff, where she was called up for her England debut after one term.

"I'd had a good freshers, so was a bit chunky," she recalls.

Even the England captaincy did not stop Knight from studying. She completed a Masters in sports leadership last year and in April joined the board of Somerset as an adviser.

"There's no better or worse to what I have done compared to what young players go through," says Knight.

"When I started, there wasn't the scrutiny. Now, everything we play is streamed. There are more opportunities to be judged as a cricketer, but maybe that leaves them in a better place for the spotlight of international cricket."

Never was Knight more under the spotlight than early 2022 and the tailend of the Covid pandemic period, when England were hammered in the Ashes in Australia, then came within a whisker of an early exit from the World Cup in New Zealand before recovering to reach the final.

"That was brutal," she says. "It was probably the closest I had come to thinking if I wanted to be captain any more.

"It was when we got back after that whole tour finished. I wasn’t super close to giving up, but it was the first time I'd really thought about it.

"After that, the Covid restrictions finished, new players came in and I felt like I'd been given a new lease of life."

Handing over the job has not crossed Knight's mind since, but at 33, she admits to wondering how long her career may last. There is also some uncertainty as to whether she would ever play for England under another captain.

For now, the Pakistan series accelerates the build-up to the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. The shortest format is probably England's strongest and they will travel with strong claims to knock off an Australia side that have lifted the trophy in six of the past seven tournaments.

After that, a jammed winter includes a tour and a Test in South Africa before Christmas and the battle to regain the Ashes in Australia in the early part of 2025.

"The World Cup and Ashes are on my horizon, but I don't want to look too far ahead either," adds Knight.

"I’ve done that to my detriment in the past, especially at the last 50-over World Cup, when I was telling myself it was my last one, so I had to do everything right. It didn't help my cricket.

"Whether it was my last or not, who knows, but I don't want to have that mentality. I’m aware I've been doing this for a long time, which isn’t that common, but I'll try not to think too deeply about it."