“We’ll have to wait and see,” Knight said. “Obviously, she went down in that first ODI, and it’s pretty rare to see Kate in that much pain. So we’ll have to see how that reacts. She’ll try and have a little bowl today, try and get a couple of spells in, and then we’ll make a call based on what we think is best for the team.
“Obviously we’ve got a huge amount of cricket coming up as well, so that’s going be at the forefront [of our thoughts]. Kate’s such a key player for us in one-day cricket and Test cricket. We want to give her the biggest chance, because she’s so desperate to play Test cricket, but we feel like our seam bowlers are going to be so important over the next month, so we want to really look after them.
“So, “I don’t know” is the honest answer, but if she doesn’t play, we’ll obviously miss her.”
The upcoming Test will be South Africa’s first on home soil in 22 years, and Knight – who still considers the format to be her favourite despite the scarcity of opportunity – said her players were all excited at the prospect of “pulling the whites back on”. The challenge of switching mindsets from white-ball to red-ball cricket, however, would be the biggest factor for the coming four days.
“From my own experiences, I absolutely love playing red-ball cricket,” Knight said. “It’s such a test, such a challenge, and something that I love doing … the mental challenge, the repetition of skills, adapting to so many different situations that you might face. I absolutely love it.
“But honestly, in the build-up to the Test, everyone was like, ‘right, what do I do, how do I learn? How to develop?’ Picking a team is pretty hard, just because you’re going on minimal information, from white-ball cricket or from a Test match that was maybe a year ago.
“So it’s quite hard thing to prepare for. Mentally, it’s about getting clarity around how you’re going to play. I don’t think that should differ hugely from your one-day mindset, it’s just doing things for a little bit longer and managing situations that change in a game a little bit better.
“You have to be okay sometimes with not scoring, and having to soak up pressure for a little bit longer. But also I want the girls have that mindset that, when we get a chance to really put the pressure back on the opposition, can we move the game forward at a rate of knots?”
The two teams last faced each other in a Test match at Taunton in 2022, where Marizanne Kapp made a brilliant 150 to set her team up for a hard-fought draw.
“She’s certainly high-class, she’s a key player for them,” Knight said. “We have our plans to try and get her out. Laura [Wolvaardt]’s got potential to bat long and score some big runs as well, so she’s another key player. We want real clarity about how we want to go about it, then it’s about adapting to how they’re playing the game in the moment as well.”
Despite the proximity of the Ashes, where the Test will be held for the first time at the vast MCG, Knight insisted England’s focus was all in the “here-and-now”.
“We’re totally focused on this Test match. It’s been in the calendar, and it’s something that the girls have highlighted that they really want to play in and really want to do well. Any chance to play a Test match is really cool.
“We’ve had one eye on the Ashes throughout this series and trying to prep for that, whilst also not looking too far ahead and doing what we need to do to have some success. And obviously we’ve had huge success on this tour. It’s been a brilliant trip for us, a really successful tour. We’ve had loads of learnings as well, and things we can fine tune before we go into the Ashes.”
Andrew Miller is UK editor of ESPNcricinfo. @miller_cricket
